Copycat
We have a problem in my house. We actually have many, but one problem keeps coming back over and over. If you have children, I’m sure you have the same problem in your house, the problem of a copycat.
This problem has only grown greater as the number of children in our home has increased. One child, who is feeling extra rambunctious, begins mimicking or imitating another. It starts off as a fun game, but it quickly becomes annoying to the other child. We tell them, “If you stop talking, they’ll stop copying you,” but, as of yet, none of them have heeded that advice.
Another common occurrence is for the older kids to accuse the younger kids of copying them while doing normal activities. The older child wants a snack, so now the younger child wants one too. The older child wants to color in the Frozen coloring book, so now the younger child wants to too. Of course, when this happens we hear from across the house, “They’re copying me!” In this instance I try to pull the older child aside and explain to them what’s going on.
I was that younger sibling. I looked up to my big brother and wanted to do everything that he did. If he built spaceships out of LEGOs, I wanted to do it too. If he rode around the yard in his snowmobile, I wanted to do it too. Unlike the previous copycat game which served only to annoy, This game wasn’t intentional. As I explain to the children, the reason the little kids want to copy them is because they look up to them. In their eyes, the big kids are so cool that they want to be just like them. If the big kids want to play LEGOs, they want to do it too, because that means they’ll be just like them. That’s why I did it, and I’m sure that’s why the younger kids do it too.
As much as older siblings find it annoying, I’m flattered when my boys mimic me. As a father, it warms my heart to see that my boys want to be like me, and it makes me want to be the best man I can be so that I might be a good example for them. The fact that they follow me and imitate me means that they want to be like me. The fact that they imitate me shows that they love me and admire me. Likewise, as we continue through Ephesians, Paul tells us that we are to imitate God just as I imitated my brother and our children imitate us (Ephesians 5:1-2).
Within the Bible we have all the laws of God as well as the life of Jesus. We also have the teachings of the apostles about God’s law and Jesus’ life, and over and over again we see all of this is summed up with the simple command to love. While that’s all well and good,
sometimes we need a little more direction than just to love, and Paul gives us that direction (Ephesians 4:25-32).
Within these verses Paul begins to outline what it looks like to put on the new self and become a child of God. He finishes it off with the passage we began with, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children,” and uses that to segue into the next passage. But scattered throughout this passage are a few areas in which we should imitate God.
The first is in our speech. They say actions speak louder than words, and while that’s true, it does not mean words are unimportant. Jesus said in Matthew 15:18, “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.” What we say is important.
In my house, we battle with children telling the truth on a daily basis. From, “Did you go to the bathroom?” to, “Whose shirt is this?” we’ve had to start putting consequences in place for lying. Surprisingly the children don’t understand why we don’t believe them when they tell us something. We tell them that if they lie to us all the time that we can’t trust them, but Paul takes it a step further. With love as the basis, the importance of honesty lies beyond people believing you. Love becomes the reason to tell the truth. Paul advises us to tell the truth because “we are all members of one body.”
How little respect must you have for someone to lie to them? Do you think they’re stupid? Do they mean so little to you that they don’t deserve the truth? Actions speak louder than words, but what you say really matters. It’s a direct reflection of what’s in your heart. That goes beyond just honesty. It’s reflected in everything you say to another person and even how you say it (Ephesians 4:29). This goes for how we speak to our friends, family, coworkers, children, spouse, and animals. If the words coming out of your mouth aren’t a benefit to someone else, think long and hard before they come out. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, but more importantly, if you can’t say anything nice, as Jesus pointed out (Matthew 15:18), it’s because it’s not first in your heart.
The second area Paul addresses is our temper. I’ll admit that this is one that I’ve struggled with all my life. As a child, I’d hit or kick whatever was around when I became angry. On the playground at school I’d fly off the handle at the smallest thing. Over the years, through the grace of God, I have mellowed out. There are times when anger still burns within, but the scriptures do not say to not be angry. In Ephesians 4:26 Paul is quoting from Psalm 4:4 which states the same concept of not sinning in your anger and not holding a grudge.
Even Jesus became angry, but as it says, in our anger we must not sin. However, the point being made here is the same point made in the Psalms. In 1 John 3:15 it says, “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer.” Jesus says in Matthew 5:22, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, will be subject to judgment.” Anger is in itself is not bad, but it’s not just the sinful actions of which we must be wary. There’s a reason we’re told, both here and in the Psalms, to not go to bed angry. As we dwell on that anger, it festers inside of us (Ephesians 4:31). If not dealt with, the anger will grow. Your anger will grow to bitterness and your bitterness to rage all at the expense of love. “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:26-27).
The third area is our work. It makes sense guard our speech and our temper, but what about our work? Paul speaks pointedly about stealing, so why do I label this as work? As Paul points out in Ephesians 4:28, this is about more than just taking what doesn’t belong to you. It’s not enough to simply stop stealing. If we are truly imitating God, we must go beyond simply not stealing and instead, in love, seek the betterment of our brothers and sisters through our own labor. Putting others first instead of selfishly hording the fruit of our labor is the true embodiment of God’s love through our work. God’s love demands that we go that extra step to love our neighbor.
All of this is then summarized in Ephesians 4:32 and the emphasis is placed on the love and forgiveness of Christ. We’ve been called to imitate God, not as an annoying little brother or sister, but as a dearly loved child imitates their father. Looking up to him in awe and wonder and desiring above all else to be like him in his standard of love. Through our speech, through our temper, and through our work, in all we do we must be an imitator, a copycat of God.