A Gift for God

Ephesians 5:1 – “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” 

During Christmas time, just like when attending a birthday party as a child, we seek to give the best gifts possible to our family and friends.  We want them to remember our gift amidst all the other presents that are sitting underneath the Christmas tree.  While pondering on some of the best gifts I have ever given to people, even outside of Christmas, I was brought back to a story that my dad has used as an illustration in many of his messages.  He says that when I was a kid I wrote an essay for school about who I looked to as a hero, basically, an essay on who I wanted to be like when I got older.  Being a comic book junkie today, if I guessed, I would probably say that I wrote about Mr. Fantastic, the genius brain behind the Fantastic Four, or Spider-Man; but what I found out I wrote was that I wanted to be like my dad.  He says that that is one of the greatest gifts he ever received, even though it may not have actually been a gift for any specific occasion.  That had to be one of the greatest gifts I have ever given.

But the big question is “What gift can we bring to our God this Christmas?”  We worship the Lord of all Creation, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.  How can we offer the One who holds the whole world in the palms of His hands a gift worthy enough for Him?  The honest truth is we really can’t give Him something worthy of Him, but we can give Him something He wants – our lives.  For those who have yet to give their hearts and lives over to Jesus Christ as LORD and Savior, the greatest thing you can give Him is the child-like faith in Him as your Savior and LORD.  But for those of us who are already disciples of Jesus Christ, who have chosen to commit our lives to living for Him each day, our greatest gift would be the daily laying down of our lives as we pick up our crosses.  This can best be put into action through the highest form of flattery – imitation.

Paul splits his letter to the Ephesians in two parts – doctrine in the first three chapters and practical action in the last three.  In the middle of this section on practical living for Christ, he begins chapter 5 by reminding the disciples at Ephesus to be imitators of God, which basically sums up how we as disciples of Jesus Christ should live every day, for when we imitate Him, we cannot help but fulfill every command that He set before us.  For example, if you imitated Christ in love, you would fulfill His command to love one another as Christ loved us (John 13:34-35).  How can you have a greater love than His – a love that placed Himself on a cross to die for those who were still His enemies?  If you imitated Christ in obedience, there could be no sin in your life, for Christ was the perfect Son of God, who obeyed every will of His Father in heaven.  If you imitated His character, you could not help but show His humility, His hospitality, and His grace, mercy, and forgiveness of others, completing the Beatitudes.   By imitating God, you would best fulfill His will for your life.

But Paul does not stop there; he goes on to further describe how they should imitate God – “as beloved children.”  Just like a child desires to be like his parents (if they are good ones), we should desire to be like our Heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and our Comforter – the Holy Spirit.  Children can’t help but want to be like their parents, such was I, when I wrote that essay about wanting to be like my dad.  Children in child-like faith never set restraints to how much they want to imitate their parents, for they at the time picture their mother or father to be the most perfect person they know.  As we grow older though, we realize our parents are flawed and begin to set boundaries to how much we want to be like them and how much we want to improve; but with God, we get nothing but perfection.  He is the Perfect Father, and we can imitate Him with that same child-like faith and commitment.  No boundaries, no limits, no improvements.  Just complete full imitation.

The greatest gift we can give to our Lord and Savior this Christmas as well as every day of our lives is a humble heart that will lay our lives down before Him, take up our cross, and follow Him.  The best way to do this is to imitate Him in character, deed, and heart.  Let us make the commitment to imitate our God from this time forth and throughout the new year, for this is how we as disciples tangibly give Him our lives and serve Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

*We will be going over more topics on gifts for Christmas so stay tuned.