Imitate God by living a life of love

The other day, I watched a Christian movie that I hadn’t seen for a while entitled “Another Perfect Stranger”. This is a sequel to “The Perfect Stranger”, a film where a lawyer is invited to dinner with someone who claimed to be Jesus Christ Himself. She goes along with it and ends up having a fascinating conversation with the man.

“Another Perfect Stranger” is the sequel. It features the lawyer’s daughter, Sarah. Sarah ends up meeting the same man that her mother had met, the guy claiming to be Jesus, only she doesn’t know it’s the same man.

There was a line of dialogue in a particular scene that grabbed my attention. In one scene, Sarah and the man (who at this point had introduced himself as “Yesh”) are on an airplane chatting with one another. They got on the subject of what real Christianity is. “Yesh” put it this way: “It’s letting Him love other people through you. It’s knowing you are forgiven. It’s knowing that you’re accepted; no matter what you always have a special place in God’s heart.”

That whole quotation is worth contemplating. To know you are forgiven, accepted, and that you have a special place in God’s heart is such an invaluable thought, but my mind has been riveted on that first part of the quote: real Christianity is “letting Him [God] love other people through you.”

Today is my birthday.  I find myself wanting to renew my commitment to displaying God’s love to other people through my actions. Ephesians 5:1-2 puts it this way: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” What a passage and what a challenge! Imitate God by living a life of love; my blog title today and one of the goals of my life.

I want to be a vessel that demonstrates God’s love to others through my deeds. I want to be a reflection to others that there is a God who loves humanity deeply, fervently, and passionately. In short, as the day of my birth is celebrated, I want to deflect the attention away from myself and put it on the Lord. Focus instead on the fact that God is great, majestic, powerful, and He loves you and me “with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Kevin