His Love Compensates and Bonus: Imitators of Our Lord and God

February 28

Family members are often quite readily identifiable. Shared features are so evident that there can be no mistake that they are children of the same parents or extended members of the same clan. Even strangers can identify them because of the distinguishing characteristics that they share.

Sometimes those defining features are personality traits more than physical characteristics. A wealthy family may be noted for its generosity or a missionary family may be recognized because of its life of sacrifice for the gospel of Christ’s sake.

According to I John 3:1, there may be a factor that works in reverse of those that identify the similarities in people. Here the beloved apostle says, “How great is the love of the Father toward us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it does not know Him.” Anyone who does not recognize the True and Living Christ will not recognize His people either!

Though the believer in Christ is precious to the Father and co-heir with Christ of the treasures of eternity (Romans 8:17), he may be unrecognizable to the unbeliever who sees as the world sees. Those who are God’s own may be despised and maligned by people who value the things of earth, but the great love the Father has for them more than compensates for anything the world withholds.


February 29 BONUS: Imitators of Our Lord and God

One thing that thoroughly delights parents in their young children is to see themselves being emulated by the precious little ones who hold them in such lofty regard. Who hasn’t smiled to observe a child clomping through the house in his daddy’s work boots? Who hasn’t laughed out loud at the site of a little girl lugging her mother’s huge purse?

It is a well-established fact that little children delight in being just like those they love. If we care nothing for our own temporal and spiritual well-being, this knowledge should cause us to place a very high premium on how we live our lives in the eyes of the precious babies who see us as heroes. Guiding their spiritual choices is the paramount thing we have to do as we live our lives before them.

And who should we as believers in Christ emulate as we endeavor to walk the path of life that opens before us; as we strive to show the way to those with whom we traverse life’s highways and byways? Our God has a word for us in this matter that is of great eternal consequence.

In Ephesians 5:1, 2, Paul writes, “Be ye imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children. Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” We are to be imitators of the Lord who loves us enough to have given Himself for us, and in so doing, we will be imitators of our loving God.