The Ethic of Devotion to Jesus Christ

The following excerpt is from the book The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics by Stanley J. Grenz:

"The goal of devotion supplied the ultimate rationale for Jesus' emphasis on inwardness. Conduct flows from character, he taught, but true character arises from devotion. Indeed, devotion to the Master became the wellspring for the development of Christlike character in his disciples. In short, Jesus' followers were not motivated to follow their Lord by admiration for a historical person who had done some great deeds. Instead their discipleship was the outflow of personal gratitude and love to the one whose love they had experienced. Such discipleship opened the way for the New Testament focus on incorporation into Christ and conformity to Christ.
The ethic of devotion provides the link between Jesus and his disciples in every era. The dynamic of devotion means that we no longer stand outside the biblical story. Unlike the manner in which we may observe the plot of a good novel or even follow the biography of a great hero, we are not mere uninvolved observers of the gospel narrative. Instead, we are participants in the gospel drama as those who, like the early disciples, are the recipients of Christ's love. We have been touched firsthand not only by the moral ideal Jesus embodied but by the Risen Lord himself.
Consequently we do not merely admire Jesus as we might admire other historical figures such as Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer or Mother Teresa. We do not simply draw inspiration or a pattern for living from his life as we might do from theirs. The Christian ethic does not look to Jesus solely as a historical example whom we seek to emulate. We do not look to him only as the main character in a story from a bygone era on whose life we can reflect and thereby draw instruction. Rather he has loved us and has sacrificed his life for us. To this personal experience of Jesus' great love, we find ourselves compelled to respond with gratitude and love. Hence, rather than merely patterning our lives after his, we enter into relationship with him. In this relationship we desire to live as Christ would have us live, that is, to have Christ formed in us.
This ethic of devotion has characterized Christians throughout the ages. Christ's followers have consistently differentiated between other model persons (such as the patriarchs, the apostles and the martyrs), whose memory they bore in their hearts, and Jesus Christ, who through his Spirit had made his abode in their hearts. Thereby the Christian ethos has intensified and personalized the biblical concept of the presence of God among God's people. The divine presence is none other than the indwelling reality of the living Lord Jesus Christ mediated through his Holy Spirit...
And by pouring out the Spirit on his followers, the Risen Lord mediated to them the divine dynamic that made possible the imitation of the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth."
Stanley J. Grenz, The Moral Quest