Jesus, the Role Model
Ephesians 5:1
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
This ‘therefore’ attaches the verse to the end of the previous chapter, where Paul is exhorting the Ephesians to practice kindness and forgiveness, saying that God has done this for us. Paul tells us to look at the example of God and follow it. Do we do that well? I know I don’t. I see God as a friend, a king, a father, but…a role model? Do I look up to God even equally to the way some of us looked up to Mario Lemieux or Michael Jordan as kids, let alone far more than that because God is God and those are just people? Do I strive to be an imitator of God?
role model - a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated.
When I was a kid, I recall having a toy lawn mower. When my dad cut the grass, I’d follow behind him. When you’ve got a good dad, who doesn’t want to be like him, you know? When I read about being an imitator of God, I thought of this, and I’m sure a lot of you have similar stories. I was a beloved child, I know that. And while I’ve never really wanted to be JUST like my parents, I’ve always been secure in the fact that I have been raised by two excellent people who have positively influenced my life in so many ways.
If Mom and Dad can be that role model, that positive influence in my life, then how much more should God be positively influencing my life?
I suppose, in a sense, that He is. See, Mom and Dad don’t frequently sit me down and start imparting wisdom. A lot of what I’ve learned from them has just been in retrospect or in continual observation. Let’s give an example. Like any married couple, they have their differences, and they’d argue about it. But they’ve always turned it around. They never sustained their anger for too long and they always made up afterwards. One usually had to apologize to the other to make it happen, and the lines of communication had to be open after that. There’s a lot to be learned there, just by watching them interact over twenty-one years. Dad never had to sit me down and say “Son, if you get in a fight, you should do X, Y, and Z,” because 1) I never asked, 2) that’s not an easy conversation to start!, 3) my parents generally aren’t the type to needlessly impose their morality, and 4) actions speak louder than words anyways. It makes perfect sense that parents who don’t divorce raise kids who are less likely to divorce, because we grow up seeing reconciliation, love, and unwillingness to quit in action.
What’s the point of the example? Well, I’ve been around God a fair bit and I’ve been around a fair amount of Godly people. In this immersion I find myself being influenced, and I can learn a lot of lessons if I sit down and think about it. I could watch every argument my parents ever had and never learn a thing, if I don’t ever analyze the situation. To conclude this point, I’ll say that I think that true Christians imitate God, whether we truly realize it or not. The Bible says that “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33), and the opposite is certainly true, that good company corrupts bad character and encourages growth. We imitate someone just by being around them enough.
But there’s another level, one that I can definitely work on, where I look for God to teach me. Where I actively look for positive attributes of God and try to do them because that’s what He did. I guess I’ve been bad at this with my parents. They know a lot about jobs and taxes and budgets and graduating from college and having a significant other but I never really ask them about it. It’s one thing to imitate someone just by being around them, but it’s another thing to actively look to someone with the intent of doing what they do.
However, that’s what God is calling us to do in this verse, to see Him as not just a good influence, not just someone you become like because you’re around Him so much, but as “a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated” - a true role model! We can’t be content to merely get close and let our lives be changed over time…we need to start looking at His example and praying for the strength to follow in His glorious footsteps!
Grace and peace,
Brendan
