Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
- 1 John 2:6
On Sunday night and the following morning, my son was down for the count, sick enough that he left our church’s fall festival an hour early and didn’t go to school Monday morning. Hacking cough, fever, runny nose, labored breathing, the works—the kid just felt awful.
My daughter didn’t totally understand what was going on; she was having trouble fathoming why her bubba kept grunting, “Give me space!” whenever she got close to him. After a few rounds of this, we explained to her that Andrew was sick and that’s why he was lying down and kept coughing. She paused to process this for a moment, then her eyes lit up. With the acting prowess of a young Meryl Streep, she threw herself down on the ground, hacked out a few coughs, and then looked up at us. “I sick too, see? Just like Bubba!”
Imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery. But it’s important to be sure you’re imitating the right things.
If you model your life after this world’s idols, you will give people the impression that those idols’ priorities—be they money, power, fame, or pleasure—are what matters most to you. The more you emulate superstar athletes, political figures, and Hollywood celebrities, the more prone you will become to following in their footsteps even when they veer off track.
In Christ, we have been given the model human being, a literally perfect person who shows us not only the character of God, but what a sinless life looks like. And if we want our lives to bear witness to his, we ought to walk as he walked and live as he lived—we ought to be marked by holiness, mercy, and love.
Inevitably,
you’re going to imitate someone. Make sure your choice is the healthy one.
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