Imitation

Last night I had a salad with imitation crab meat.  Why, you may ask?  Because my husband purchases it from time to time (I never do) and I suppose I hold out hope that one day it will actually taste like genuine crab meat.  I don’t dislike the flavor of the copycat, but it’s just not the same as the real thing.  And while I really like the real thing, it is not an affordable item with the current budget. Even with a much greater income, I expect I would always consider the purchase of real crab meat for special occasions only!

We live in a world full of imitations.  There are imitation designer clothes and handbags, imitation diamonds, imitation perfume, and a vast multitude of  food choices.  Personal preference normally determines if we find an imitation product acceptable or not.  My short list of acceptable or unacceptable?

• Diamonds:  real
• Perfume:  real
• Clothes/Handbags:  real or imitation, I don’t care, if the price is right     🙂
• Food:   real (duh), but with some products imitating others, such as my veggie “meats”

Just because something is an imitation doesn’t mean it is unacceptable.  We get to choose.  Sometimes the copies are perfectly acceptable.  And the more attention the manufacturer gives to improving the product, the better it gets.  (So, there is hope for the imitation crab!)

The Apostle Paul was a very confident man.  His conversion on the road to Damascus was dramatically life-changing, and when he was teaching the new converts, he wrote:

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  1 Corinthians 11:1

“I urge you, then, be imitators of me.”  1 Corinthians 4:16

He was so confident in the way he lived his life before God that he told them to imitate him!  That sounds a bit arrogant, doesn’t it? But I believe he wrote from a pure heart, because he was instructing them to do what he had done:

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”  Ephesians 5:1

“But we do desire for each of you to show the same diligence and sincerity in realizing and enjoying the full assurance and development of your faith until the end, in order that you may not grow disinterested and become spiritual sluggards, but imitators, behaving as do those who through faith and by practice of patient endurance and waiting are inheriting the promises.”  Hebrews 6:11-12

Are we mindful to be imitators of God?  Do we look at the men and women of faith in the Bible and pattern our lives after their behavior of patient endurance with an expectation of receiving what God has promised??  Would we have the boldness to tell others to imitate our lives, being confident that it would lead them closer to God?

“And all of us, as with unveiled face, continue to behold in the Word of God as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever-increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another…”  2 Corinthians 3:18

Let’s each be an imitation of Jesus – a copy that “looks”, sounds, and acts like Him.  The more we yield to the Creator, the more opportunity He has to “improve” us, to make us more and more like Him.  And one day when we enter heaven, this imitation will be an exact likeness of Him!