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« Kyria Contributor on Good Morning America and Good Parenting | Main | God and the News »
February 1, 2011Who Are You Imitating?
We’re all following someone’s example.
I drive like my dad. Well, maybe not as aggressively, but similarly nonetheless. As a grown-up daughter I see how influential my parents’ example has been in my life and in the lives of my sisters. From simple driving habits to the complex way we handle anger, my sisters and I are in many ways just mirroring the examples we’ve seen throughout our lives.
It seems like this is an established pattern. Jesus did what he saw his Father doing: “I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does” (John 5:19). I love how Paul Miller puts it in his book A Praying Life, “Jesus was the first person who didn’t seek independence.” And we are to follow Jesus’ example by living as dependent children of God. In one of my favorite verses, Paul tells us to be imitators of God because we are his dearly loved children (Ephesians 5:1).
Imitating someone hits home because I’m a visual learner. I need to see things to be able to learn how to do them. How does this apply to my spiritual life? I want to do what I see my Father doing. And the way I learn how he does things is by seeing it in his Word. You can’t follow an example you don’t know, or ignore.
“Keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish” (Hebrews 12:2) is hard. There are a million things and people clamoring for our attention and enticing us to independence. It can get overwhelming trying to discern and balance all the demands made on us. But Jesus and the New Testament writers keep it simple: “Be imitators of God.” The Message puts it this way: “Watch what God does, and then you do it.”
What about you? What helps you to see and imitate God? How can you simplify who and what you follow? How can knowing your learning style help you keep your eyes on Jesus?
Comments
I've had many disappointments with church leadership the past few years and I think God is teaching me to look at Jesus as the one "on whom our faith depends from start to finish." People will always let us down. Just when you think you've found the greatest pastor, they change overnight into someone you don't want to emulate. Maybe God doesn't want us to focus on man and please man. Many seek the ruler's favour but justice comes from the Lord. I have to learn that but it's hard to keep from getting discouraged and from switching off from church altogether because God wants us to go to church.
Posted By: Kathleen | February 27, 2011 10:35 AM
iam totally amazed for altogether the word of God has said it all hope ,trust,have confidence in God and not in man.If Christ will completly be our epitome.our role model will end up bing like him,he was like God his father because he followed his example.
Posted By: rev chinwe odikpo mrs. | March 1, 2011 4:46 AM