“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children”
~ Ephesians 5:1

 

So, we’re not just called to believe in, praise, worship, and love the Lord. We’re also called to imitate Him.

 

Isn’t that amazing?

 

But, in order to imitate another person, you must:

 

1. Have the nature to imitate: A lion cannot imitate the flight pattern of a falcon.
2. Have the right to imitate: In the things that really matter – for instance, patents, designs, inventions, writings and so on – you would need the appropriate rights in order to imitate.
3. See the model: You can’t imitate what you can’t observe. You can’t observe what you can’t see.
4. Understand  the model: You can see and observe yet don’t understand. You can’t imitate what you don’t understand.

 

The good news is that if you are born again through faith and baptism in Jesus Christ, you have received the nature of God, plus the right to imitate Him. So you’ve satisfied the first two criteria. But those two are not sufficient to imitate God. You will need to see how God does thing; and you will need to understand  His ways. This is a real challenge. Because, the ways of God are so different from how human society operates.

 

There is a very clear distinction between the ways of God and and the ways of men.

 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
~ Isaiah 55:8,9

 

The thoughts of God are not just different, they are also often diametrically opposed to man’s. And the same goes for the ways of God. This poses tremendous challenge for anyone that aspires to imitate Him. It demands that you pause and invest quality time in observing how He works, knowing that it may absolutely contradict everything you’ve ever been taught.

 

“Observe the way the Maker does things, and fall in line. Why fight the facts of life?”
~ Ecclesiastes 7:13(TLB)

 

How do you observe?

 

The temptation here is to assume that you can observe God’s methods with your natural human faculties. In reality, the ways of God are mysterious; they are hidden—that means that they are not obvious. Because God is Spirit, immortal and invisible, His ways are spiritual and cannot be discerned with mere human eyes.

 

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
~ 1 Corinthians 2:14

 

Thus, in order to see, observe, and understand the ways of God—as well as imitate them—you will need the help of the Holy Spirit;  and for this you need to pray.

 

 

To observe, understand, and imitate the ways of God, here are three of the most life-transforming prayers you can pray. I’ve been praying them regularly now for over twenty years, and God’s answers to them have literally changed my life in more ways than I can possibly recount.

 

Here’s the first one from David:

 

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
~ Psalm 86:11

 

Here’s the second one; also from David:

 

Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.
~ Psalm 119:18

 

Here’s the third one from Paul:

 

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
~ Ephesians 1: 17

 

Memorize these three powerful prayers; diligently pray them faithfully, several times each day, for the rest of your life; and you will experience such amazing insight into the ways of God, so much so that your life on earth becomes a testimony  of signs, wonders, and fruitfulness to the glory of God.

 

Enjoy a blissful week!