Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Ephesians 4:32-5:2 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. 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.
LIKE SON, LIKE SON
In our Bibles chapter and verse numbers were added long after the words of Scripture were put down by the inspired writers. Sometimes it's a good idea to just read through a chapter ending and complete the thought the Holy Spirit is laying upon our hearts. This one gives you goosebumps.
The apostle urges us to imitate God! But this is not an admonition to be creative or to be in charge of the world of nature. It's so much more than that. We Christ-believers are to be like God in the attribute that is the height of God's glory! Love. To love others with the self-sacrificing love that caused our Savior to offer himself up for us! To forgive as we have been forgiven in Christ!
This isn't some kind of heavy-handed demand that is far beyond our ability. After all, Paul's point is not that we could ever do this on the same level of perfection as God does. Nor is this way of living something that is forced on us by outside pressure. This loving, forgiving lifestyle overflows from a heart that has been filled with God's love to us.
This kind of love is not merely a goal, it's a reality that God himself works in Christ’s people through Word and Sacrament, thereby pouring into our hearts that very love that God originally used to create faith within -- and daily uses to strengthen it.
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.... This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:7, 9-11).
