5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. As children imitate their earthly parents, we should imitate God. We need to watch Him, listen to Him, study Him, be around Him. just like children do with their parents. Children are products of their environments, their geneology, their upbringing and their DNA! As children of God, whose "DNA" do we have? Christ's of course! Christ is our example of how we should think, speak and behave. We need to immerse ourselves in His Word and in prayer.We need to be involved in individual and group Bible studies, we need to be attending a Bible believing, Christ-centered church. We need to be in continuing fellowship with our brothers and sisters. The bottomline is that we must love one another just "as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a FRAGRANT OFFERING AND SACRIFICE TO GOD!" Brothers amd sisters, God himself provided the sacrifice for our sins, to cleanse us and to do away with the sinful nature that we were born with. When we accept Christ as our savior, the sinful nature is REPLACED with a Holy nature, HIS nature! When we "put on" Christ, we begin a journey to perfection ("Be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect", Jesus said! If we truely have accepted Christ then we must obey Him. He is our example, HE shows us the Father! WE can be imitators of God because we can imitate Christ! And when we imitate Christ, we shed our self-centeredness and become Christ-centered thereby becoming OTHERS-centered. We must be willing to love each other so deeply that we are willing to give ourselves up for another becoming a "fragrant and sacrifice to God" Paul appeals to us in the book of Romans, chapter 12, ".. to present our bodies as a LIVING sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship." Remember, God literally sacrificed Himself in the personhood of Jesus of Nazareth, to imitate God, we muct do the same, we must die to self and be alive in Christ, our goal must continually be "it is no longer I that live but Jesus Christ who lives in me and the life that I live in the flesh I live to the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20.

In Christ's Love,

Pastor Todd+