Devotional Message

BE IMITATORS OF GOD IN LOVE

“Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph. 5:1,2).

The graciousness of God in Ephesians 4:32 —“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” serves as the motivation for an appeal to be IMITATORS OF GOD.  This exhortation of Paul is the best expression of imitating God. But this is something the natural man can never do. We need the love of God to wrap our whole being so that we can be kind and tender-hearted to each other. Remember that this command to imitate God is addressed only to God’s children. There’s no way unbelievers can imitate God. The nature of man is so opposite from the Holy God. God’s children are also called “children of light,” as opposed to their past lives “who were once living in darkness” (Ephesians 5:8). Once a person has been born-again, he/she becomes a child of God. His/her nature has been changed, and all things become new to the believer (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As a child of God, the believer has no greater calling or purpose than that of imitating his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is our end goal—to become Christ-like. This is the very purpose of sanctification, growing in likeness to the Lord while serving Him on earth. The Christian life is designed to reproduce godliness as modeled by our Lord, in whose image believers have been recreated through the new birth. As God’s children, believers are to become more and more like their heavenly Father. We read in 2 Corinthians 3:18—“But we all…beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the Lord.” I wish I could say to every one who is a member of the Lord’s body these words—“Wow! Brother, sister, I can see in you the face of God!”

Problem is, the glory of God in the lives of believers are seldom seen or expressed. Rather, we see the egoistic, selfish, outlook of the so-called Christian. I have seen many people stumbled by the bad testimony of someone called Christian. The apostle Paul gave us the prescription on how we can imitate God which is found in Ephesians 5: 2—“Walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us.” Jesus Christ is the supreme example in His self-sacrificing love for lost sinners.  He took human sin upon Himself and gave up His very life that men might be redeemed from their sin, receive a new nature, and inherit eternal life. Once we were lovers of selves but now we become lovers of God. And we can exemplify this love by loving our fellow believers in Christ. We also develop compassion for the lost so much so that Christians must be first to do charitable work whenever there is a need. We have seen this done by various Christian groups who immediately responded to any particular need as soon as they hear it. Look at what the various Christian volunteers did in New Orleans, when the Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. We saw how Christians left their homes, sacrificed their time, effort, and money helping those who were rendered homeless. It was the Christians who first responded in the tsunami disaster in Indonesia, Thailand, and India. Again, we saw the quick response of churches that are in the forefront helping the victims of the Haiti earthquake. It’s one thing to provide water, food, medical assistance to the suffering people. But there is quite a big difference in meeting the emotional, spiritual needs of individuals besides their material needs through the tender-loving care of people giving assistance to the sufferers.

This expression—“Be imitators of God” develops the motif of the Christian as a new creation in God's image.  Therefore, one would expect some account of the virtues that characterize God to follow.  The expression "live in love" meets that requirement.  God's love was introduced in Paul’s letter to the church of Ephesus as the cause of election to holiness which we read in Ephesians 1:4.  Our election to be children of God is proven by the kind of life you and I  exemplify.  The Christian's grounding in love is formed by knowledge of the love of Christ. The general exhortation to love continues with an illustrative clause "as Christ loved us". When we love fellow believers as Christ loved us, we will show the three elements of love which are:  understanding, forgiving, and serving. Christ's death as an acceptable self-offering to God provides the concrete example of that love. A more concrete application of the exemplary love of Christ for the community of the faithful occurs when we apply God’s words found in I Corinthians 13:1-4 “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

by: Pastor Elmer Manzo