Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. In season 1, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of Ephesians. Today’s passage is Ephesians 5:1-2.
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children”
As God’s children we are to walk in love. In other words we are called to imitate the attitudes and actions of God, as revealed in scripture, by living our lives in loving obedience to God and sacrificial love towards others.
To be imitators of God as His beloved children means we belong and we bear the family resemblance. It means those who know us begin to see in us a reflection of the heart of Jesus Himself.
May our character, our thoughts, our words and our deeds be aligned with God, with God’s Word, God’s will and God’s ways.
We can love others better when we know and experience the great love of God for us. The greatest love of all is not merely learning to love my self. The greatest love of all is learning I am loved by God.
Today, let’s remember to:
- Walk in love: love from God, love for God, and love for others
- Give our lives away by serving God and serving others; sacrificially spending the time, energy and resources entrusted to us for God’s glory and for the good of our neighbors.
- All of this as an offering and a sacrifice to God: an expression of worship and gratitude for all God has done for us in Christ!
Imitation means that God is the original and we are the copies. We look to the Lord and in Jesus we find a new way to be human; a way that turns away from self to serve God’s purposes and plans, a life that pleases God and then turns to show sacrificial love toward others.
“Our imitation of God in this life… must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this…is the Divine life operating under human conditions.”
– C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“This is the argument of the New Testament everywhere, those who are born of God must love one another—they cannot help it.”
– Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ
