Are you imitating God, Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery

Be imitators of God 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.
Ephesians 5:1-2 New International Version

THOUGHTS ABOUT TODAY’S VERSE…
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery you can bestow on anyone. God must have wanted us to be imitators of Him, after all He created us in His image (Gen 1:26). If we are to sincerely flatter God by being like Him, we must be prepared for the cost as well. You see, love for God is never something that occurs just in our minds or our hearts. Love is something we do for another — it is an action. John said in 1 John 4 that we must love in both our deeds and our words. Love means to give ourselves up — what we want, our rights, our desires — so that we can honor God and serve others. This is true ‘AGAPE’, the God kind of love, not an emotional or physical love. This is a kind of love that can change the world, or a marriage, or a family, or the lost. This is the kind of love whereby Jesus said: “and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Are you willing to lay your life down for someone, a brother, a sister, a father, or maybe a wife or husband, what about a friend or a neighbor, maybe even someone you don’t even know? God says we must be imitators of Him!

MY PRAYER…
Abba Father, I will never fully understand how You could love me so much that You would allow Your only begotten Son to die for me as my sacrifice and substitute. Please help me love others as sacrificially as You have loved me. I know the power to do this is not within me, so please pour Your love into my heart through Your Holy Spirit so that I may share that love with others. Through Jesus, my Lord, my brother and my sacrifice, I pray.
Amen