Follow or Imitate?

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children, Ephesians 5:1.

The analogy here is children. I raised 8 children. One of the things children enjoy doing is imitating their parents. While their mommies cook and take care of babies, little girls like wearing little aprons just like Mommy's. They like pushing dolls in strollers, and pretending to cook. Little boys like putting on their daddy's shoes and carrying around toy tools. Just in general they like to pretend that they are big men like Daddy.

What is far more rare today is children who actually follow their parents. Throughout Western New York and Northwest Pennsylvania are countless churches that are not missing one generation. They are missing two. These churches are mostly attended by older retired people whose children and grandchildren have no interest in church life.

These children imitate their parents as they stock their homes with new furniture, appliances, and luxuries that it took their parents decades to accumulate. They do not follow their parents’ example in taking years to achieve those comforts. They pile up luxuries and comfort through debt.

The Apostle Paul told us to be followers of God. Just when I began to think that the new bible versions could no longer shock me, I attended a church service in a fellowship that used the New King James Bible. It was difficult for me to believe it, but their bible said; Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. My first thought was Isaiah 14:14, I will be like the most High.

Lucifer never intended to follow God. He intended to imitate him. Here was a bible version telling us to imitate God which in reality is following Lucifer. The devil imitates God. To give just a few of very many examples:

1. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world, John 8:12.

   And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, 2nd Corinthians 11:14.

2. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, John 1:1.

   Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God, Ezekiel 28:6.

3. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, Revelation 5:5.

   Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, 1st Peter 5:8.

Those are just a few of very many examples of how the devil imitates God. When a woman complained to J. Vernon McGee about a sermon he preached which she thought made her husband look bad, she said "I'll have you know that my husband is a model christian". He explained to her that a model is a small fake imitation of the real thing.

When my children lived at home, they imitated their mother and me in dress standards, church attendance, entertainment preferences and they generally comported themselves is such a way as to be acceptable to us. What most of them did not do was follow us. As they got on their own, their lives comported more and more to the world around them.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it, Proverbs 22:6. Fortunately, and by the grace of God, they grew older. I received this message from one of my sons who had previously hurt himself grievously with worldly behavior. Speaking of the Black Creek Baptist Church where I formerly pastored, and of four of my sons who live near to it, he said;

God greatly answered that desire you had to have a church your children would want to attend. Here we are a decade and a half later happily attending the house of God even after your departure. ...May God in that same great grace both keep the church and us in that same grace where he has brought us.

I like it a lot better when they follow their mother and me than when they imitated us.

2nd Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2nd Timothy 3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

2nd Timothy 3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

2nd Timothy 3:4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

2nd Timothy 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

A bible has been prepared for those last days. It teaches men to imitate God. It teaches them to have a form of godliness.