Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)
My dad was a giant. At least that’s what I thought when I was five or six years old and stomped up and down the stairs and around the house with his enormous shoes on my feet and over-sized hat on my head. He was so big and heroic that I wanted to be just like him. I’d march in his Marine shoes and snap salutes in his Marine hat. My mother told me he was a protector of our country’s freedom. I was a kid and knew I was too little to be him. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t imitate him and look as much as like him as I could.
Jesus imitated His Father. The result was healing and salvation of broken people. And He taught those around Him to do the same thing. Jesus wasn’t simply a mystic that talked about a spiritual path to enlightenment or a knowledge that came from feeling good feelings. Jesus DID something. He loved and served His Father by imitating Him and reflecting Him to the people He walked among.
In the same way, we need to imitate Jesus. We best represent Jesus to a watching world when we imitate Him the way a child imitates his heroic dad. The result will look like Jesus' results: the healing and salvation of broken and lost people.
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