Imitate the Father.  What a comforting thought that we don’t have to figure out what would be right and pleasing to the Father.  All we have to do is keep our eyes on Him and do what He does.  Focus our hearts on all that He is and everything that makes Him God – and then imitate it.  He has already laid out the example,  all we have to do is follow it.

His Passion

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word.”   -Ephesians 5.25-26

Out of all the world’s religions, many are based upon people seeking after God – but there is no other like Christianity where God seeks after the people.  His passion is to love people.  He is Love and every motive of His heart, everything He does, is driven by Love.  It is impossible for Him to move outside of Love – because that is Who He is.  Jesus Loved the Church and gave Himself for her that through that love He might separate her out from the world and make her perfectly pure and cleansed by the washing of the Word.

Psalm 86.15 says that He is “a God full of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth”.  

If we are to be imitators of God, we must first imitate His Passion – the driving motive behind everything we say, think, and do must be Love and Compassion.  Even as Jesus Christ loved the Church, so we must love the people around us, bathing them with the Word of  God that they may be made pure and cleansed through Him.

The compassion of the Father should burn in our hearts greater than anything else.

Since God is Love and God and His Word are One – then the Word is Love.

“Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart,  from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.”  (II Timothy 1.5) 

This being the case, the highest expression of Love that can be given is through the Word of God.  When we release the Word of God from a pure and compassionate heart into someone’s life – we love them with the most precious substance in the entire universe.  It is loving them with God Himself.   The greatest thing in the world is Love.

His Presence

“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are One…. That the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”    - John 17.22-23

The glory of God is His manifest Presence.  In Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17, He said that the glory God had given Him , He had given to us, so that we could be ONE in that glory with Him and the Father.  This is how the world will know that God sent Jesus and that He has loved us in the same way as He has loved Him.

We were created to bear His Presence.   “….that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory.  Even us whom He called….”  Romans 9.23,24

He prepared us beforehand to be carriers of His glory, His presence.  Genesis 5.1 tells us that “In the day that God created man, He made Him in the likeness of God.”

From the day man was created, mankind was to be the presence of God on this earth, just as his Father was the presence of God in Heaven.  Because the Spirit of God is living on the inside of us, His Presence is here on earth through us.

Ever since the day Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, the Church has been His Presence here on earth.  That is why we are called the “Body of Christ” –  As His successors, we are now the Presence of Jesus in this world.  It is time that we live in the fullness of that reality.

And He said,  “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  Exodus 33.14

“Glory and honor are in His Presence, strength and gladness are in His place.”  I Chronicles 16.27

As bearers of His Presence, we should be carrying with us glory, honor, strength, gladness and rest at all time.  Everywhere we go and everything we do, we should bring peace, refreshing, deliverance, joy, restoration, and abundance to all that we come in contact with.

At the presence of God in us, our enemies fall back and perish (Ps. 9.3).   As wax melts before the fire so the wicked will perish at His Presence.  (Ps. 68.2)  And at His Presence in us, every mountain that stands before us will melt into nothing!  (Ps. 97.5)

Because of His Presence in us, we will be able to carry the same deliverance that brought the children of Israel out of bondage and parted the Red Sea, to this hurting, dying world around us – only now that glory and presence revealed will be multiplied times greater.    We are in that time when “The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it.”    – Isaiah 40.5

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”   – Hab. 2.14

And it is going to happen through us!   This is why it is essential that whatever we do, we do all to the glory of God.  (I Cor. 10.31)   Because His Presence has been restored to us in Jesus, every day and every moment is a fresh opportunity to let that glory shine big through you.

His Holiness

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Himself before the foundation of the world, THAT WE SHOULD BE HOLY AND WITHOUT BLAME BEFORE HIM IN LOVE.”    –  Ephesians 1.3-4

If we are to be imitators of God, we must live holy, just as He is holy.  This is what He chose for us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love – because it is only in imitating His Holiness that we will be able to emanate His Presence and His Glory to the world around us.

It is He Who works His Holiness in us as we press in to be holy.  “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely(set you apart, make you holy) and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”   I Thes. 5.23

His Power

“But the people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits.”  Daniel 11.32

The power of God is His ability to accomplish everything that is possible or impossible.  His power is not limited to natural means nor affected by natural circumstances.  And we who know Him and know His power will be strong in the power of His might and  carry out great exploits to His praise and His glory, because it is His power that is at work within us and not merely our own.

I Cor. 2.4-5 says that our speech and our preaching should not be with “persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that our faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the Power of God.”

It is His ability at work within us that will accomplish His purposes.   It is through living our lives with purpose, redeeming the time at hand, understanding what the will of the Lord is for every situation, and being continually filled afresh with the Spirit (Eph. 5.15-18) that His power will be able to flow through us as He has intended.

We must walk as children of Light, daily finding out and doing what is acceptable to the Lord.  (Eph. 5.8-10)

Jesus said, “People need more than bread for their life; they must feed on every word of God.”  (Matt. 4.4 NLT)

Our food, our sustenance, must be to do the will of Him who sent us and to accomplish His work, just as it was for our Lord before us.  (John 4.34)

When we hunger to know and do His will, when we pursue with all our hearts to love as He loves, to speak as He speaks, and to do as He does – then we will be that offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma to Him.    We will be those dear children, intently imitating the heart of the Father.

And through us, the whole world will come to know  HIS PASSION, HIS PRESENCE, and HIS POWER.

Copyright  © September 2006

Sharah LaGail Wyatt   /   First Love Ministries  International

P O Box 163974   Ft Worth,  TX  76161  /  www. ps27f.org