I Want To Be Accused Of Being An Imitator

If you want to be extraordinary, love your enemies. If you want to be like Jesus, love your enemies. If you want to be called children of Father, love your enemies. If you truly want to belong to Jesus, to walk in his footsteps, to be everything he has called you to be, allowing the Spirit to work through you, then you must be determined to obey Jesus' commands and to do what he did. Jesus said:

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return ... (Luke 6:25a) 

You see, being a Christian is not a tradition that is handed down to you by your family. It is not a philosophy of living. It is not "pie in the sky" that ushers in utopia on this earth. It is a transformation that moves us to a place of extravagant love expressed through strong action. It is the denying of self for the purpose of promoting the welfare of others. It is an impossibility to manufacture in ourselves. It is far beyond the reach of our limited abilities but nothing is impossible for Yahweh.

The Word tells us what the Holy Spirit is doing in and through us. Our limited capacity is changed, walls come tumbling down, limitations are removed and we are filled with Father's capacity to love. That is what Jesus told us:

... your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. (v. 25b)

We will be transformed so that we will love like Daddy loves because we will take on his character. Every child takes on some of the behavioural characteristics of his parents. This is not passed on by genetics but is learned behaviour. The Spirit gives us new capacity through the transformation but it is only by observing Father (through the Son) that we learn what is expected of us. Love your enemies, do good without restraints. Don't hold back because of your thinking and prejudices. Don't allow personal feelings to get in the way of Father's extravagance in love. What does that look like?

If you want to know what Father's love looks like and how it has impacted us, look no further than the gift of himself through the Son, Jesus. He laid it all out for us, walking through the experience of torture so he could reach the goal of the sacrificial lamb, lifted high upon a cross. We can't even begin to describe such extravagance, but is the same unrelenting love we are to give to our enemies. Are you there yet?

Most likely most of us reading and writing these words are not near to being there yet. We live in a culture where you are more important than your neighbour. We live in a culture that holds up justice for the individual, as long as that individual is not in his mother's womb. We believe the individual is so important that we will stomp all over the rights of others just to lift up that one person. We fight for the equality of one group at the cost of inequality for all the others. The problem is, we all want to be that individual; we all want to be that special group; we want all the attention focused on us. This makes it hard for us to relate to "love your enemies". Nonetheless, it is what Jesus said we need to do, reflecting the character of Father who is "kind to the ungrateful and those who are wicked".

In case we missed the point, there is no room in the Christian vocabulary for the phrase, "How dare you ...", or, "I have the right...". We are too concerned with reflecting the character of Father to be worried about who did what against us and which of our many rights have been violated. Just think of how many rights Jesus set aside in order to demonstrate the extraordinary love of Father. To imitate Father should be the only thought on the minds of his children:

So imitate God and be truly compassionate, the way your Father is. (v.36) 

The Word says it, the Spirit does it but our will must desire it. There is no judgment coming from this writer but the facts should speak for themselves. Look in the mirror, reflect on your behaviour and attitude, ask yourself if your love for Jesus has brought you the point of obedience to his commands, and take careful note if you are imitating Father. Are you imitating him? Are you extraordinary because of your demonstrated love for your enemies? Do you do good every day without any restraints? You have been transformed by Jesus, changed, made new, and now you have the capacity to be an imitator of Father. It is a learned behaviour. Watch what he does, and do it.

What Does It Take To Love Like Jesus?

I don't think we hold ourselves to a high enough standard, especially in what we call love. People may think money is the foundation of everything but they are mistaken. Without love there is only existence, there is no abundance. I believe most of us want to move beyond existence and discover what gives us real joy, but that won't happen without love. And I don't mean our Hallmark experience of love. Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, said without love he was nothing and he had nothing:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

But we have all heard this before. There is nothing new here, so what is the problem? Why are we living such one dimensional lives? Why can't we seem to get any closer to Jesus and why does it seem like we are missing something? I think it's because we are so busy with "stuff" we don't have time to actually reflect on the Word of God. Sure we read it but we don't have time just to sit in the presence of Jesus, to meditate on passages, and be taught by the Spirit. We treat the teachings of Jesus like Gandhi's teachings, not understanding that Jesus is the bread of life and from him has come instructions to serve him. Consider this:

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.  And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Children imitate their parents. They see what they are doing and they try to do the same things. My 19 month old loves to stand on her stool at the sink and "help" me do dishes. She watches me and then tries to imitate me. We are suppose to examine the life of Jesus and, through the power of the Spirit in us, do what he did. We are to love as he loved us. If you sit and think about that for a moment it is going to blow you away. In fact, it will most likely change everything you do and how you do it. At the very least it will reveal to you your wrong motivations.

Jesus left everything that was familiar to him. He was changed forever. He walked as you and I do today, filled by the Spirit to enable him to minister to mankind. He thought nothing of himself as he poured out his life daily for the sake of the people who needed to hear the Good News. He was innocent but he gave his life, through suffering and death, to die in our place. And when he did it we were his enemies. He did it so we could have the opportunity to discover the Father, to know what real life was, so we could repent and be forgiven, so we could have eternal life with him. He loved us.

He loved his enemies after telling us to love our enemies. Yet our love is of such a low degree that we aren't willing to sacrifice our desires for those who love us. We are missing something somewhere and I think it is simply because we have gone with the Hallmark version of love instead of Jesus'. 

To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. (Luke 6:29a)

This is the simple verse that has blown the top off my life. Yes, I have known it since my Sunday School days but I haven't really known it. Well, at least not to the depth the Spirit has been taking me to recently. The cost of this one simple teaching; the necessity to be completely empty of the idea of justice and rights; it shames me. The vulnerability in love that it demands has been lacking in my life. How about yours? The willingness to be hurt in love.

Why do I keep going on about this? Because we are missing the point. It is as Paul wrote: Without love we have nothing and we are nothing. Again, not Hallmark love but Jesus' love, and if we are willing to do some honest reflection I think most of us would agree that we haven't been living there. It is important because of this:

But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? (Luke 6:46)

How many times have you gotten angry at someone for what they did against you? How many times did you feel your rights were stepped on? How angry do you get at injustices committed against you? Do you get angry at the person who forces their way ahead of you? How many times have you been offended by someone who says they love you? How many times have you been hurt or slighted? How much unforgiveness are you carrying around? How many seeds of bitterness have been planted? If this is the result of one week of living how could you possibly imitate Jesus and walk in love?

You can, you just need to get to know him better. You need to know what he taught and how he lived it. You need to sit with him for good chunks of time every day, just to learn from him. And then you have to trust that by the Spirit he has made you capable to love in this way. I am talking way beyond acts of kindness. I am talking about the depth of Jesus' love, where you give up all your rights and put everyone above yourself; not just those who love you but your enemy as well; where you are willing to be vulnerable to hurt, pain and suffering as a result of your love. We are talking the heart of a servant whose only purpose is the betterment of all other people, including those who hate you. We lay down our lives so others might live.

If we can start loving like this the story of Jesus is going to be told to more people and more people will make the decision to be re-birthed in Jesus. He started an incredible revolution of love that flies in the face of the false prince of this world and he told us to carry on. That revolution has faded recently but it only takes a spark to see it come to life again. May that spark be ignited by the Holy Spirit in you and me.