How to Follow God
Our basketball regular season is over. A teammate was shouting and yelling in our team huddle during a time out. I look over to the crowd in the stands, and a parent is shouting and yelling too. Kids are imitators. Much of their imitation comes from what thy see in their parents.
He adds to this a simple motivation: “as [little] children” (5:1). It belongs to the child heart to imitate. It belongs to the freedom and spontaneity of childhood freely and spontaneously to imitate. Like children, we are to play follow the leader with the Great Leader of all God’s family.
In classical and Hellenistic Greek, mimeomai/mimētēs designates (1) the simple act of mimicking what one sees another doing, (2) the joy of following and emulating another, and (3) the representation of reality in artistic activities (e.g., theater, painting, sculpture, poetry). Used in a derogatory manner, the terms indicate weak and unoriginal copying.
“We must imitate Christ’s life and his ways if we are to be truly enlightened and set free from the darkness of our own hearts. Let it be the most important thing we do.”
Walk IN Step With God.
5:1–2. Each Christian should be an imitator of God because he is God’s child. As a child imitates his parents, so ought a believer to imitate God (cf. Matt. 5:48; Luke 6:36).
It should always be noted that the more excellent something is the more likely it will be imitated. There are many false diamonds and rubies, but who goes about making counterfeit pebbles? However, the more excellent things are the more difficult it is to imitate them in their essential character and intrinsic virtues. Yet the more variable the imitations be, the more skill and subtlety will be used in making them an exact imitation.
So it is with Christian virtues and graces. The devil and men’s own deceitful hearts tend to imitate those things that have the highest value. So no graces are more counterfeited than love and humility. For these are the virtues where the beauty of a true Christian is seen most clearly.
—Jonathan Edward
A 12 year-old boy doused himself with rubbing alcohol and set himself on fire imitating a scene he had seen in a rock music video, authorities said.
The boy, a fan of heavy-metal music who takes electric guitar lessons and wears an earring in the shape of a cross, said he was inspired by a member of the band Motley Crue performing in a television video.
“He just lit his legs on fire, and nothing happened to him,” the sixth grader said.
“He dropped to the ground and rolled around, but the fire would not go out.”
The youth ran to the bathroom and got in the tub, which was filled with water from a bath he had taken earlier.
How can I Follow or Imitate God?
Walk in Love. 2
followers—Greek, “imitators” of God, in respect to “love” (Eph 5:2): God’s essential character (1 Jn 4:16).
In fact the apostle would broaden the sphere of ‘imitation of God’ from simply the forgiving spirit to love in every other way. The constancy with which such love is to be demonstrated is indicated by yet another use of the word walk (see on 2:2). Love is to characterize the Christian’s daily progress along the road of life. Indeed this verse sums up the whole section, and sets aside all the negatives with its one great positive command. There is a perfect example, even in human flesh, which has been given and can be copied.
Christians can imitate God by loving others, even to the point of death if necessary (1 John 3:16).
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
Walk in the Light. 8-10
You have noticed the lighting of the streets or of a public building,—how, when the first lamp is lit, it is plainly seen, and disperses, in part, the surrounding darkness; but when the second, third, fourth, and all the lamps are lit, the lights meets light, ray blends with ray, until the whole place is illuminated. Thus it is with the spread of Christian light. The light of life shining from one believer joins and blends with that of another; the light of one neighborhood, with an adjoining one; the light of nation with nation, until the whole world becomes filled with the light of the glorious gospel of the blessed God.
Walk with Carefulness. 15
Norman Selby was born in 1873 in Montana. As a teenager he began to box. In 1891, he took the name Charles “Kid” McCoy, because Irish boxers were more popular at this time in America. His first recorded fight was a 4-round decision over Pete Jenkins on June 2, 1891, in St. Paul, Minnesota. McCoy went undefeated in 19 fights before being knocked out by Billy Steffers in the 1st round on May 10, 1894. He avenged that loss by winning a 10-round decision over Steffers on August 29, 1894.
McCoy claimed the welterweight title after knocking out champion Tommy Ryan in the 15th round on March 2, 1896, but Ryan was generally still considered the champion. After outgrowing the division, McCoy also claimed the vacant middleweight championship when he knocked out Dan Creedon in the 15th round on December 17, 1897.
It is said that McCoy had so many imitators who took his name in boxing booths in small towns throughout the country, including one calling himself Al McCoy, that eventually Selby had to bill himself as Kid “The Real” McCoy, and the phrase stuck. “The Real McCoy” became the trademark of the champion.
There is one and only one Son of God. That is Jesus Christ.