Genuine Imitation

Yeshua gives the most incredible commandment in the Bible when He is exhorts His followers, “Therefore, be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). Paul gives a similar admonition, “be imitators of God as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1). Just as children learn proper conduct by imitating their parents’ example, we learn how to live for God by imitating Him.

Genuine imitation emphasizes the importance of modeling our lives after godly examples. We must perform right actions from the right motivations – the love of God and our neighbors. We are reflecting the values and conduct of the one being imitated.

It is difficult to imitate a transcendent God. God helped us imitate Him by coming to earth in human form – Jesus. Jesus led a perfect, sinless life giving us an example to follow. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:1 and 1 Thessalonians 1:6 instructs us to be imitators of Jesus.

Jesus had an advantage over us in imitating God because He was both fully man and fully God. Jesus proclaimed, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Paul knew that Jesus’ divinity might make imitating Him seem impossible to believers. Therefore, Paul offers himself as an example.

“Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me” (1 Corinthians 4:16) Paul was not holding himself us as our example. He was offering himself as one who was fully human and engaged in the same struggle to be like Jesus that we experience. “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Paul is imitating Jesus because Jesus is the example of God’s perfection in human form.

Paul offers himself as one example of a Christian leader whom they should imitate. Leaders (pastors and elders) are charged with the responsibility of imitating Jesus as an example to the church “Remember those who led you,

who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).

Finally, we are directed to look at our fellow believers as they engage in imitating Jesus. We are told to be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). We are further instructed as congregations to look to the example of other faithful churches, “became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 2:14).

Paul wrote “Be imitators all together of me, brethren, and fix your eyes on those walking thus as you have us for a model” (Philippians 3:17) Imitating Jesus as a congregation builds the continuity and integrity of the church as we mature in Christ individually.

Paul tells us what we should imitate, “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9). Also, “Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings” (2 Timothy 3:10-11).

Let us imitate God and Jesus as individuals and as His church.