Have you had your JOY JUICE today? The past few days we’ve been looking at
Ephesians 4. Some of the juice from these verses was hard to swallow. But the first verse in Chapter 5 gives us
some wise advice that will help us to make sure our JOY JUICE is fragrant and
sweet.
“Be
imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love,
just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and
sacrifice to God.”
"Paul is telling us to model our lives after
God. Just as a professional actor is
committed to capturing the emotions, looks, voice, and character of the person
he is portraying, we are to put our whole heart and soul into imitating God.”
(Rick Renner in Sparkling Gems)
Acting like
God takes lots of practice. It’s not
going to come easy…and we will never attain perfection. But we can determine to
start TODAY; then try again tomorrow, and the next day and the next. We have
the perfect role model: Jesus! Our goal should be to try to think like Him,
love like Him, serve like Him.
Just as children imitate their parents, we
should imitate God. His great love for
us led him to sacrifice himself so that we might live. Our love for others
should be a love that goes beyond affection to self-sacrificing service. (Life
Application Bible footnote, Ephesians 5:1,2) With this kind of love comes the obvious
fruit of JOY!
Let GOD be your role model! Be so filled with HIS JOY that it will
naturally overflow onto others!
No comments:
Post a Comment