Wed., 3/25/20 Devotion (Eph. 5:1)

Today's encouragement comes from Ephesians 5:1, where we read these words of Paul:

"Therefore be imitators of God as dear children."

Human beings, created in the very image of God, were to be like Him, resem-bling Him in all communicable graces. Sin turned us into something more akin to devils, than divinity. But all of this is more than compensated for in Christ, His atonement, and the the Holy Spirit’s application of the same (by grace through faith) to His church.

Now we who are in Jesus as His faithful church act like Him. In so doing, we are "imitators of God." Because of surpassing grace we now can do what even the pre-Fall Adam could never do: namely, praise God for exalting our human nature to the highest extent—in that the Second Person of the Trinity is now both God and man.

[Puritan quote of the day: "A sanctified [mind] will make every creature a lad-der to heaven.” —Richard Sibbes, in, "The Soul's Conflict with Itself"]