Imitators

Imitators    

 

If we took a poll of all the little boys in our church, I would venture to guess that most if not all have some sort of super hero underwear or p.j.'s at home. The same for little girls, they have dress up clothes and princess shoes. They run around the house dancing and twirling or jumping off couches. Their dreams of being superman are constantly on their little minds….one day prince charming will rescue me is the dream of every little girl. We use to dream pretty big didn't we? We use to think that our dads were the strongest and our moms the prettiest. We would put our dads' boots on and play with our moms' jewelry or makeup. All the while dreaming of who we wanted to be when we grew up. Who did you use to imitate? There has to be someone. Everyone had someone that they used to look up to and strive to be more like.

More importantly though, who do you choose to imitate now?

What I have begun to realize is that the older we get, the more warped our "hero's" are. Let me explain. Most little kids will automatically say their mom or dad. Where does it change so drastically that when we hit oh say 13ish, our parents are now complete idiots and know absolutely nothing? Superman and our favorite princess are no longer cool and revered, rather, we look at the pretty cheerleader or popular quarterback and wish that we could be like them (o.k. so I never wanted to be a cheerleader….but you get my drift) we want to stand out. We want to be popular. We want everyone to notice us and think we are cool. So we strive to impress. We go to great measures to look "good", and go into meltdown if we have any sort of blemish on our faces. We think we will be forever remembered as the zit faced kid or the girl who didn't have Guess jeans or Nike shoes. Disaster is spelled out like this: "I don't have a date".

That same warped mine, shifts a bit, but never entirely goes away. We begin to want to impress different people as we grow. The situation may change, but our motives hardly ever do. We need approval. We seek to be like the popular people.

At what length have you gone to get the approval you desired? Have you compromised your moral standards? Decided to look cool and go out drinking with your buddies? Starved yourself to lose a few pounds, to look skinnier than the next girl? Ignored someone beside you because she just didn't fit your idea of what a friend would look like? How can we as adults really fall into the "I want to be cool" category…..aren't we suppose to be passed that?

Let me throw a verse at you and have you think on it a bit….

 

Galatians 1:10

"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please, men, I would not be a servant of Christ."

Pretty convicting huh???

Take a quick look at your life. Can you say that you are spending your life trying to win the approval of God? Think about the lengths we go to fit in. Think about the lengths we go to so that people will like us more. Think of the lengths we go to so that people will be impressed with us. Now think about how amazing it would be if we tried that hard to impress God. If we did all things for His Glory. How amazing would that be? From experience I can testify that God's approval fills you in a way that makes others approval unnecessary. God would not only fill you, but would keep you filled to a point that nothing else mattered.

Paul, Silas & Timothy wrote to the church of the Thessalonians and said this:

1 Thessalonians 1:5-8

"You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere."

The Thessalonians chose to imitate men of God. The men of God chose to live among them and be models to imitate. The result? The Thessalonians became models to other Christians and their faith was known everywhere! There is one part of the verse though that I don't want you to overlook…..they imitated men of God in spite of SEVERE suffering! Can we do that? We imitate people so that we are more popular and have more "fun". Can we model people of God even if we know that there may be suffering involved? Can we step out of our comfortable living to say to God, "even if it means suffering, I will follow you completely"? Is it worth to you?

He wants our praise. He wants our devotion. He wants to be #1 in our lives. Are we going to let Him? Are we going to love Him so much that we want to only impress Him? Living like the models He desires us to be? The result will be a ripple effect. You will affect others, who will affect others, etc……

One final thought: it may be surprising to see how many people want to be like you. If you are imitating God, then you are a person worth imitating. Whether you want it or not, there will be someone somewhere that is a follower.

Are you living a life worth imitating?