Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, a quote from Oscar Wilde.
I remember as a grade school girl having a best friend. We decided to call ourselves the copy cats and we bought t-shirts and had copy cat ironed onto the backs. We liked each other and wanted everyone to know that we wanted to be as close to twins as possible. While we wore our shirts, we felt a kinship, a closeness, a unity unmatched in any other relationships we had. We were best friends. Fast forward to me of today and I have similar sentiments of wanting to feel kinship, a closeness that feels like the outside and inside of me matches up with the people I share my inner most life with. We don’t have to be twins, we just have to want similar ways of being in the world, ways of recognizing one another and being together with mind, heart, and soul connections. It is a craving to understand and be understood and more than this, a desire to travel together in the same direction “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). I envision a dusty well trodden road with millions upon millions of Gods saints walking side by side, skipping ahead, following closely behind with Jesus in our midst. We travel en masse, heading in one direction…
“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). What does this me, to imitate Christ? I come up against secularism here, a world that wants to know Jesus, accept him and looks at the yucky humans around them that profess faith in Christ but act like the devil. I see their point and it is this: if you and I look to humans as our example we will always be disappointed and disillusioned because you and I, we get it wrong a lot of the time. Jesus though, the Jesus of The Bible, the one that walked the earth, died on a cross for the sins of the world, rose again in power and love from the grave and walked again on the earth with eye witnesses whose lives were changed so much that they were and are willing to die for him, that guy/god is a perfect wonder to behold! Look at him and him alone and not your human counterparts and you will fall in love, you will want to be a Christ imitator or not…in invisible ink, printed on my back, my front, are the words, Christ Copy Cat. I do not flatter my God, I want to imitate him, be just like him in a world that denies him and his rightful place as king. Who do you imitate? Who do you want to be like? Who do you travel with side by side and where, pray tell, are you travelling to?
I remember as a grade school girl having a best friend. We decided to call ourselves the copy cats and we bought t-shirts and had copy cat ironed onto the backs. We liked each other and wanted everyone to know that we wanted to be as close to twins as possible. While we wore our shirts, we felt a kinship, a closeness, a unity unmatched in any other relationships we had. We were best friends. Fast forward to me of today and I have similar sentiments of wanting to feel kinship, a closeness that feels like the outside and inside of me matches up with the people I share my inner most life with. We don’t have to be twins, we just have to want similar ways of being in the world, ways of recognizing one another and being together with mind, heart, and soul connections. It is a craving to understand and be understood and more than this, a desire to travel together in the same direction “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). I envision a dusty well trodden road with millions upon millions of Gods saints walking side by side, skipping ahead, following closely behind with Jesus in our midst. We travel en masse, heading in one direction…
“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). What does this me, to imitate Christ? I come up against secularism here, a world that wants to know Jesus, accept him and looks at the yucky humans around them that profess faith in Christ but act like the devil. I see their point and it is this: if you and I look to humans as our example we will always be disappointed and disillusioned because you and I, we get it wrong a lot of the time. Jesus though, the Jesus of The Bible, the one that walked the earth, died on a cross for the sins of the world, rose again in power and love from the grave and walked again on the earth with eye witnesses whose lives were changed so much that they were and are willing to die for him, that guy/god is a perfect wonder to behold! Look at him and him alone and not your human counterparts and you will fall in love, you will want to be a Christ imitator or not…in invisible ink, printed on my back, my front, are the words, Christ Copy Cat. I do not flatter my God, I want to imitate him, be just like him in a world that denies him and his rightful place as king. Who do you imitate? Who do you want to be like? Who do you travel with side by side and where, pray tell, are you travelling to?
