Being Imitators of God

Be imitators of God as beloved children. We are the children of God. God is not a God who draws us nearly to Himself, He draws us all the way to Himself, and He makes us His own children by birth and by adoption. Not only are we His children, but we are His beloved children, and we are loved by God from eternity past through eternity future. We are therefore to be imitators of God. And what does that mean? Well, in verse 2 it says it means that we walk in love. You’re never more like God than when you love, because everything that God has done for us is done because He loved us.

That’s John 3, 16, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to us for salvation. Be imitators of God. That’s a high bar, I understand that. It’s a high bar. And you might say to yourself, that seems far too high for us to attain. And if you’re thinking of being equal to God in the comprehensive reality of His nature, it is too far. But you can imitate God in ways that the Bible designed you to imitate God, and in what ways the Spirit of God enables you to do that, and to help ease the burden of that command to be an imitator of God.

Let me draw you back to chapter 3, verse 14, where the Apostle Paul is praying, and he is bowing his knees before the Father, who identifies with all of us that we are His family in heaven and on earth, and he prays for us. And he prays that God would grant us, verse 16, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. So first, we need to understand, Paul is praying for us, and he’s praying for something that has become possible, because the Spirit of God has taken up residence in our chapter 17.

Settle down, be at home in your hearts through faith. And then this, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. In chapter 5 he says, be an imitator of God. That’s a command. Here it’s an indicative. You can be filled up to all the fullness of God if you know fully the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.

So again, imitating God is about having love the way God loves, and we looked at that last time. How does God love? Verse 2 explains it. Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. And we said this, that primarily divine love is known for its forgiveness, for its forgiveness. That is the simplest definition of divine love. God loves us enough to offer us unconditional, self-sacrificing, forgiving love. And we saw last time that that’s what he asks of us.

If you’re going to love like God then you forgive. Sometimes 70 times 7 you forgive. But you’re never more like God, Jesus said in Matthew 5, than when you love your enemies. And that demands forgiveness, endless forgiveness. So the call here, in this aspect of our life as a Christian, is to walk in love. That’s part of the worthy walk. Back in chapter 4 verse 1, Paul implored us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we are called. And that’s an effectual calling to salvation. So to walk worthy, we have to walk in love.

Can we do that? Yes, because we have been transformed. If you go back to chapter 2 and remind yourselves of those very familiar verses, verse 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Then verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Just as much as God elected your justification, he elected your sanctification. You have been chosen and ordained to good works, and those good works were ordained before time began.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of being imitators of God. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].