Memory Verse: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” - Ephesians 5:1 (KJV)
There is something that happens almost instinctively when people observe a child alongside their parent. They look for resemblance. They notice the same angle of a smile, the same manner of speaking, the same way of carrying oneself through a room. And when they find it, the remark comes naturally: “You are just like your father.” The observation is not merely about genetics. It is about the deeper truth that sustained proximity to a person shapes you in ways that eventually become visible to everyone around you.
This is perhaps most obvious when a child has been raised closely by a parent of strong character. The father who is known for his generosity raises a child who gives freely. The father who is scrupulous in his honesty raises a child who tells the truth even when it is costly. The father who handles his affairs with dignity and composure produces a child who, in time, handles theirs the same way. The family name comes to carry a certain expectation, and the child bearing that name is expected to embody it.
This is the framework within which the Apostle Paul gives one of his most concentrated commands in all of his letters. Writing to the believers at Ephesus, he says:
“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” - Ephesians 5:1 (KJV)
The word translated “followers” here is the Greek “mimētai” from which we derive the English word "mimic." It means imitators: those who observe carefully and then reproduce what they have observed. Paul is not calling believers to admire God from a distance, or to hold Him in reverent esteem while living independently of His character. He is calling them to imitate Him - to watch how God conducts Himself, to study what He values, to understand how He relates to those around Him, and then to live in the same way.
The phrase “as dear children” gives us the basis and the motivation for this imitation. It is not the imitation of a student performing for an examiner, or of an employee trying to impress an employer. It is the imitation of a child who loves their father and who follows him not out of compulsion or calculation, but out of the natural desire of a loving child to be like the one they belong to. The word “dear” here carries the sense of beloved, deeply loved, and held with affection. We are not imitating God under duress. We are following our Father because He is ours, and we are His, and that relationship is characterised by love on both sides.
But what does it mean, practically, to follow God and to imitate Him? The verse that immediately precedes our passage gives the first and most explicit answer. Ephesians 4:32 says: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” Kindness. Tenderheartedness. Forgiveness. These are the specific qualities Paul names as expressions of the God-imitating life, and they are qualities that all flow in one direction: toward other people. To follow God is not first and foremost a matter of private piety. It is a matter of how one treats others, because this is how God treats us.
The verse that immediately follows our passage completes the picture: “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour” (Ephesians 5:2). To follow God, as His dear children, is ultimately to walk in love - the self-giving, costly, sacrificial love that Christ Himself demonstrated when He gave Himself for us. This is the family trait that God the Father most desires to see reproduced in His children: love that gives, that forgives, that moves toward others rather than away from them.
It is worth noting the word “therefore” in Ephesians 5:1. In Paul's letters, “therefore” is always a hinge to connect what has just been said to what is now being commanded. What has just been said? The entirety of Ephesians 4, in which Paul has laid out the new identity of the believer in Christ - put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). The command to imitate God does not arrive in a vacuum. It rests on the foundation of what God has already done: He has made us new. He has given us His nature. The imitation flows from the transformation. We follow God not in order to become His children, but because we already are.
This is the most important theological point in the passage, and the one most easily missed. The instruction is not: imitate God and perhaps you will become like Him. It is: you are already His dear children - now live like it. The family resemblance is not something to be achieved by effort. It is something to be expressed, progressively and consistently, out of the nature that has already been given.
May the Lord grant us the grace to follow Him - not as strangers attempting to copy what they observe from a distance, but as children who carry their Father's nature within them, and who are learning, day by day, to let it show.
Amen.
Daily Reflection
The word mimētai - imitators - implies close and sustained observation. You cannot imitate what you have not studied. A child does not grow to resemble their father by catching occasional glimpses of him from across the room. The resemblance develops through proximity: through shared meals, through conversations, through watching how the father handles difficulty and how he treats people and what he reaches for when he needs wisdom. The imitation is the fruit of the relationship, not a substitute for it.
This is why the command to be followers of God is inseparable from the disciplines that sustain nearness to Him. You cannot imitate a God you are not spending time with. The believer who allows their devotional life to thin out by spending less time in the Word, less time in prayer, and generally less sustained attention to the things of God, will find that the family resemblance begins to fade. Not because the nature has been removed, but because the channel through which it is expressed and reinforced has been neglected.
Ask yourself honestly today: how much time are you spending with your Father? Not in the sense of performing religious duties, but in the sense of genuine, attentive proximity - reading His Word to know what He is like, praying in a way that involves listening as well as speaking, being still enough in His presence for His character to leave its impression on yours. That proximity is where the imitation is formed.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” - (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Prayer Session
Heavenly Father, I come before You today with the awareness of who You are - not just in the abstract, but as my Father, the One who has begotten me through faith in Jesus Christ and given me the right to bear Your family name. I thank You that I am not a distant admirer of Your character but a child who carries Your nature within me. That is a gift I do not take for granted.
I confess, Lord, that my life has not always reflected the family resemblance You intend. There are areas in which I have been unkind when You are kind, unforgiving when You forgive freely, and self-seeking when You give Yourself without reserve. I have not always walked in love the way Your Word calls me to. Forgive me, Father, and by Your Spirit, work in me a more consistent and genuine imitation of Your character.
Draw me into deeper proximity with You. Let me not be content with a relationship that is occasional or superficial - rushed prayers, infrequent reading of Your Word, and a mind too cluttered with other things to be truly attentive to You. I want to know You well enough to look like You. I want to spend enough time with You that people see You when they see me.
Let Your kindness be reproduced in how I treat others today. Let Your forgiveness shape how I respond when I am wronged. Let Your love govern how I engage with the people around me - especially the difficult ones, the ones I find it natural to avoid. In all of this, let the watching world see not just a person who is trying to be good, but a child who bears the unmistakable signature of their Father.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
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