Welcome to Day 157 of the “Manna for the Mind 2.0” devotional! This series is about finding nourishment in the Word of God to get us through the day. In each devotional, I take a variety of scripture passages (typically 1-3 verses each) and build our understanding of what they teach via their context and connecting scripture. My goal is to help you understand how to be the type of human God created you to be. Today’s passage is Ephesians 5:1-2.

Ephesians 5:1-2

NASB	NLT	VOICE
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;	1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.	1 So imitate God. Follow Him like adored children,
2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.	2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.	2 and live in love as the Anointed One loved you – so much that He gave Himself as a fragrant sacrifice, pleasing God.

Just as children imitate the adults that are around them consistently, we need to imitate God. God is with us twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year. How we do that is reflecting our lives to be just like Jesus. We do this through learning how we talked and acted during his time on earth. Jesus came as the incarnate God, the physical representation of God as a human, to us here on earth. His great love for us led him to sacrifice himself so that we can love our neighbors. The sacrifices we might have to make possible do not involve our lives, but we should live in a way that our love is shown at all times, even if we have to sacrifice something. It could be something like money or food, but it’s our time too. At the end of the day, our love for other should be the same kind as Jesus shows showed us – a love that goes beyond affection to self-sacrificing service.

Matthew 5:48

NASB	NLT	VOICE
48 Therefore you shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.	48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.	48 But you are called to something higher: “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

How do we become perfect? The age-old question, right? Truthfully, none of us will be perfect. Jesus is the only human that has been and will be on earth, but we can find our perfection through Jesus. I will show you how.

CHARACTER: in this life, we can’t be flawless, but we can find completion in God and aspire to be as much like Jesus as possible.

HOLINESS:Like the Pharisees, we are to separate ourselves from the world’s sinful values. The world doesn’t work off the teachings of the Bible. The world works off its own universal construct that is developed and adapted by humanity over time. Unlike the Pharisees, we are to be devoted to God’s desires instead of our own and carry his love and mercy into the world. We can still be loving and forgiving, but God’s grace and mercy are greater than anything we can imagine. It’s loving our enemies and it’s forgiving those who hurt us.

MATURITY:We can’t achieve Christ-like and holy living at one time. When we become a Christian, our ability to live like Christ doesn’t magically happen. God expects different behavior from each of us depending on where we are in our spiritual journey. The different phases of life will have us doing different things for God, but it means we adjust and adapt. We remember that God will be with at all part of our life, trusting in the path and the plan he has for us.

LOVE:We can work to love others as God loves us.

Our weaknesses and shortcomings must never deter us from trying to be more like Jesus. He wants all of use to rise above mediocrity and to mature in every area, becoming more and more like him. We can get transfixed on our weaknesses and allow them to eat at us until they become our identity. Our identity is not found in them, but in Christ.

John 13:34

NASB	NLT	VOICE
34 I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another.	34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.	34 So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways.

To love others wasn’t a new thing to the Jewish audience, for the command is found in Leviticus 19:18. To love others as much as Jesus does was revolutionary. We are to love others based on Jesus’ sacrificial love for us. This love will not only bring unbelievers to faith in Jesus but also keep believer’s strong and united in a world hostile to God. The love of God is radical, in the sense that it provides a service of love and mercy that is beyond that we are taught throughout our young live.

Jesus was a living example of God’s love, as we are to be as well. The love Jesus calls can be humanly impossible, because we must humble ourselves to show it. We do this by realizing that Jesus died his death on the cross for our sins. The punishment he bore is the one we would’ve bore. Then, we need the Holy Spirit to ignite inside of us to pour God’s love in our hearts, which we can use to love others. The Holy Spirit can spark this new energy inside of to express God’s grace, mercy, and compassion in ways that we wouldn’t do typically nor understand until after it happen.

Galatians 1:14

NASB	NLT	VOICE
14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions	14 I was far ahead of my fellow Jesus in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.	14 I excelled in the teachings of Judaism far above other Jewish leaders, and I was zealous to practice the ways of our ancestors.

To be fully Jewish, a person must be a descendant of Abraham. In addition, a faithful Jewish person adheres to the Jewish laws and traditions (found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy). Gentiles, non-Jewish people, are that way based on either religion or nationality. In Paul’s days, Jews believed that all Gentiles were pagans. Jews avoided Gentiles, believing that any contact with would cause them spiritual corruption. Although Gentiles come become practicing Jews by undergoing circumcision and following Jewish laws and customs, they were never fully accepted. We still run into this with some demographics in the Christian church today. It could our black brothers and sisters, our trans brothers and sisters, our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, and more. We can’t look past the differences between one’s lifestyle for them to feel accepted, loved, and safe in the Kingdom of God. It’s a very similar construct to how the Jewish people felt about the Gentiles, and how women were treated when they were first welcomed into the church.

God’s message is for all people. God’s salvation is for all people. He revealed his plan clearly and repeated it through the Old Testament prophets and fulfilled through Jesus. We find the story proclaimed to the Gentiles through Paul. We find the story proclaimed to us today. God’s saving grace from our bondage to sin and the forgiveness of how we miss the mark of living a Christ-like life is available to all people. It doesn’t matter what your skin color is. It doesn’t matter how you represent yourself to each other. It doesn’t matter who you love. God’s goal is to have him in your heart and reflected out to the world.

Next meal: Manna for the Mind #158