According to Ephesians 3:19, the first thing God wants from us is to understand Him, especially His desire to do the most loving thing possible in every situation. After that, choose to live with similar values, inviting Him into everything we do. We often find ourselves praying, “Let’s do this together.”
So where in the Bible do we find His character? In His commandments. The Bible lists some commandments toward the end of Ephesians 4. Chapter 5 begins with “Therefore.” “Therefore be imitators of God.” So we imitate God by doing His commandments. God’s commandments reveal His character, what He is like. The next thing is to resolve to imitate Him, and do it. Then as we ask God to be able to imitate Him, He participates in what we are doing in cooperation with our free will. According to 1 Peter 2:24, this is one reason why He sent His Son to die for our sins. So we know God wants to be part of our lives, but not without our free will decision that this is what we want. Next month we’ll look at the two greatest commandments.
