A few days ago, we were going out to buy a pie for my 11 year old sons birthday. On our way there, my younger son, Micah, asked me what my favorite pie was. I told him that my favorite pie was Boston cream pie. A day or two later, the boys were eating some left over lemon meringue, and I overheard Micah telling his older brother that his favorite pie was Boston cream pie. He’s never even tasted it, but it’s his favorite simply because he knew it was mine.
Kids have a natural tendency to act like their parents simply because they love them. Even as adults we will still take on characteristics of people that we admire or look up to. We’ll dress like our favorite celebrities, or wear the jerseys of our favorite athletes, or do things we normally wouldn’t just because someone we love likes them.
Ephesians 5:1-2
1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
2and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
As believers, imitating God is a natural response of our love and appreciation for Him. We read about Jesus in the scriptures and we see how He interacted with others in love. We see how He often set apart time to pray and maintain His relationship with the Father. We see how He worked constantly to serve others. We see Him seek out the sick and lost, that He might heal them and save them. Most of all we see how He loves us to the point of enduring an excruciating, torturous death to save us. Then our love and admiration for Him makes us want to be like Him. As we spend time reading the Bible and learning more about God, the Holy Sprit works in our minds and hearts changing the way we think and slowly making us more like Him. Even the love we have towards Him is an imitation of the love He showed us first (1 John 4:19).
A couple weeks ago at church, the worship team finished the praise session with the song “How He Loves” and as we sang the song I really felt the love of God washing over me. Right after the song, the pastor got up and shared prophetic word, that he felt like God wanted to really impress on particular people in the room the depth of His unconditional love for them. The Holy Spirit communicated Gods love to me in an overwhelming, real way at that moment. I tried really hard to hide my tear filled eyes and not look like a cry baby when people started doing the customary greeting a moment later. I have grown up going to church and I have always known that God loves me, but every once in a while I have a moment like that, where I really know His love. When you have experienced God’s love in your life, you can’t help but love Him back.
A lot of times, I start to forget about how much God loves me. Typically this is because I start focusing too much on me trying to be a good Christian instead of focusing on God and allowing Him to make me a better Christian. This usually leads to me getting depressed about how I don’t read enough, or how I don’t share my faith enough, or how I’m not a good enough spiritual leader in my home. Whenever I start to make my faith about what I’m doing, I end up getting discouraged, and usually end up being even less like God. But during the times in my life when I am really, truly aware of Gods love for me, I feel so much more peace. It causes me to think differently about myself, about others, and about the circumstances of my life. It causes me to like the things my Father likes.