Today you should read: 3 John
“I want to be like Mike!” That phrase rang in my head as a child because Michael Jordan was the best basketball player in the world and he had a Nike campaign with that slogan. If you liked basketball then you really did want to be like Mike. I remember going to my friend’s house and he had a big driveway with a basketball goal and we would play for hours. We didn’t play against one another but instead we would pretend to be Michael and Scottie. We would relive plays from games that we saw and big moments that happened. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and I wanted to be just like Michael Jordan. The other side of that story is that I turned out to be 5’10 and have an inconsistent jump shot. I had no chance of being like Michael but that did not stop me from dreaming.
Today’s passage takes the same idea of imitation from the dream world to our reality. If we are believers in Christ we are called to imitate Jesus. Jesus came and lived among man in the flesh in order to give us the example of how to live and follow him. When John says that we must imitate what is good and not what is evil (v.11) John is implying to important facts about us:
1. Imitation is a choice
As believers we have been given the Holy Spirit and made brand new through God’s grace but we still have a sin nature. That is why Paul urges us to stand firm against the slavery of sin in order to be free from it (Galatians 5:1).
2. We imitate who we love
We never imitate someone that we don’t admire or love. Therefore, if we imitate evil then we can’t say that we love God or have a relationship with Christ. I do not mean that we won’t make sinful choices from time to time but to willingly imitate consistently the things that are evil then we need to check our hearts and our salvation.
One warning that I want you to think about today. Evil doesn’t always look evil. I know some are reading this saying “This is easy, I never steal, kill or harm people.” Imitating evil goes deeper because the world is evil. James tells us that anyone who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God (James 4:4).
So my question is do you have a Biblical world view? Do you think about your life and your choices intentionally and ask what God would have you do? Or do you just do what conventional wisdom says is right?
Posted by: Chad Wiles
JumpstartCPC.com 