Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children. (Ephesians 5:1, NLT)
By nature, children are imitators, right? I love the sweet innocence of a little girl wrapping her mother’s jewelry around her neck, picking up her purse and strutting around the room, or seeing a young boy clomping around authoritatively in his father’s shoes. Even as they grow older, children often still try follow in the footsteps of those they love and admire. A recent viral video showed a middle-schooler telling everyone he wanted to be firefighter because his grandpa was, bringing grandpa to tears. Yep, it got me, too!
As children of God, we’re called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus—He is the One we love and look up to most. We want to become more like Him in every way, becoming more loving, kind, faithful, joyful and so on. This is the message of Ephesians 5:1, “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children” (NLT). Maybe we start by looking at the Scripture to learn what Jesus did and considering, “What would Jesus do?” and try to behave in the same way. This is certainly not a bad idea! But unless we look beyond what Jesus did and look more closely at why He did it, we can all too easily turn following Jesus into a checklist of do’s and don’ts, self-measurement, or performance.
So how can we follow in the steps of Jesus and learn from His example without it becoming religious ritual or vain performance?
When Jesus called His disciples, often the first thing He said to them was, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19, 9:9; John 1:43). In context, “to follow” didn’t mean to simply go in the same direction but to be united on the same path, to walk the same road together, to become one on a journey. The emphasis was on dependence and togetherness. Jesus invited His followers to become like Him by becoming increasingly aware of why He did what He did and more and more dependent upon Him, just as He was dependent upon the Father. Jesus did what He did as a response to His connected relationship with the Father. Jesus said that He never acted or spoke on His own authority, but only out of unity with and responsiveness to His Father (John 15:10). In contrast, the Pharisees tried to fulfill the Law independently, out of their own wisdom and strength. There is some “Pharisee” in all of us, which means we are capable of doing “right things” with no sense of connection with or response to God. Jesus lived with an open, humble heart, constantly connected to the Father, and everything He did flowed directly from this relational connection. These are the footsteps we seek to walk in.
So, yes, we should aim to imitate Jesus in everything we do as a response to His love and work within us. We can ask Him for the grace to grow in the same kind of open, humble spirit with which He followed our heavenly Father and lived directly from their loving relationship. Christlikeness is not a destination or a checklist. It is lifelong journey of the heart, a natural by-product of consistently being with Jesus in an open and abiding way and living in response to Him. When we purpose to yield to Jesus, He will constantly invite and enable us to become more dependent upon Him and aware of His great love. His transformational nature will infuse and influence our own.
If we tend to view discipleship and Christlikeness as a list of good things to do, we can ask the Lord for His grace to become more aware of the depths of His love for you and to become one who lives in response to being loved by God.
For further reflection: John 10:27-30; John 15:4-5; Matthew 10:24
For more ideas and encouragement about connecting with God, download my free eBook here: Listening for God: Seven Days of Noticing His Whispers in Everyday Life!
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