Living the life

On another blog (eyesturnedoutward.com) Andy White has been reflecting on some obstacles to living an outward focused life. I wrote one post about misunderstanding as an obstacle. It's made me think about some of the issues surrounding living a life for and with Jesus as leader and forgiver, Lord and Saviour to use more traditional language.
I thought about this and began to wonder about the concept of holiness. I've always found holiness to rather like a bar of soap in the shower. The more tightly you try to grip it, the more likely it is to slip out of your hand. Sometimes it seems that the more you try to define holiness, the more it eludes you and you drift towards legalism as a solution.
So I'm not going to define it as anything more than living like Jesus lived, and that's where I see the hurdles appearing. How do we live like Jesus lived? How do we do what Jesus would do?
As a local church leader I get plenty of opportunities to see what happens when we don't manage to live like Jesus lived. And I'm not just talking about other people's lives I'm talking about my own life too.
This isn't a one size fits all solution, but I've noticed that sometimes the root issue is trying to live a double life. In other words we live like followers of Jesus when we're around other followers of Jesus, but we live like non-followers when we are with non-followers.
I remember Jim Packer saying: The problem with North American Protestantism is that it is 3,000 miles wide but only half and inch deep. The double life approach leads to shallow Christianity and shallow Christianity will not produce lasting fruit.
So I ask myself: How am I doing? Am I living like a follower of Jesus?
This isn't a complete programme, perhaps there isn't one. Maybe it isn't even a complete thought! But as a work-in-progress I wanted to think out loud for a moment.