Imitation Game

Introduction

Loving like Christ is our highest calling.

The calling of Christ-likeness is our highest calling for our lives. 1 Peter 2:21 “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.”

We are called to walk in love like Christ loved us…How did Christ love us? Self forgetting, self-sacrificing, others-first, servant-mindset. Christ was our perfect example of how to love well. This is one reason why it is so important that we walk with Jesus and are familiar with how he lived in the accounts of the gospels because He is our flesh and bone example.

Don’t be normal

Uniqueness is what we all want to have but it’s not an easy road to walk. Walking with the Lord is a unique calling in any society because being a Christian and standing strong in your faith is ALWAYS going to cause resistance. Your life is always going to bring blessing when walking with God.

The call to holiness as the body of Christ is clear and requires more than your own abilities. You need the Holy Spirit to fulfill your calling of love and holiness. I need God like I need air. God calls us to something that is impossible to do on our own. And that’s a good thing, that’s why we have faith, that requires that we lean on the power and provision of God in our lives. If we could do it all on our own we wouldn’t need faith and we wouldn’t need God.

Normal is easy…at first. It is easy to go with the flow. It is easy to affirm the things of this world. It is easy to live indulging your flesh with the sinful things that it really wants. It is the easy route.

Normal brings destruction…every time. Peel back the curtain and see it for what it really is and where it is really taking you. All of these things that Paul is naming here in this passage are normal. All of these things are masked with fulfillment for a short time. Don’t trade short-term pleasure for long-term holiness. God has set you apart and is calling you past normal. He is calling you past the destruction that your flesh craves and Satan tempts us with. He is calling you out of the tomb of our dead and rotting flesh into a new life that gives us so much freedom and brings real blessing and real love, real success, real abundance, real fulfillment, real heart change, real progress, real life the way the creator designed it to be.

If God is the original creator we should listen to how He describes what real life and love looks like. (Saucepan handles, Aluminum foil tab, soda can tabs, oven drawers in the bottom to keep food warm, Shopping cart side tabs, tab on the rearview mirror, Milk jug indentions, cup lids as temporary coaster.) If God is the one who made us the way that we are and knows how all of us are designed…why wouldn’t we listen to him on how to live an abundant life?

Wake up sleeper

Conclusion