Being Like God
I am sure that there are many people who do believe in God, but they have not thought about needing to be like God, too. After all, why can't we believe in God, and then, just go on and live our lives being the way we want to be? Well, it is kind of complicated, but there are several reasons that is not how it works. When we believe in God we are putting our trust in Him. If we trust Him, we will do what He says, not what we want. That would be trusting in ourselves, not Him. However, one of the main reasons we must be like God is that He wants to be our God and have a close relationship with us. In order to have that kind of relationship, we have to have the same interests as God, and we have to be the kind of people with whom He wants to have fellowship. Just think about it. We like to hang out with people who are like us, don't we? God is the same way. (Leviticus 11:45) He told Moses to tell the people of Israel that He was the Lord, the one who brought them up from the land of Egypt that He might be their God. Therefore, they must be holy, because He is holy. This truth deserves some thought.
God is vastly different from most people. He loves to do the right thing, and He never does the wrong thing. Wouldn't it be hard for Him, or even impossible for Him to be like that and have followers who were doing the wrong things, and they really didn't like doing the right things? How could they relate well to each other? It wouldn't happen. Therefore, God said that once we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we must be "holy." He does that for us when He washes away our sins by His grace. However, after we are cleansed, we are to grow in the Lord to be more and more like Jesus. We learn God's Word, and we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, as He conforms us to image of Jesus. We become more and more holy. We begin to hate the wrong things, and to love to do the right things, just like God. Then, we find out that we have a great relationship with God because we have the same interests and desires. That is why we must "be holy" if we are to have God as our God.
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Tomorrow, I intend to read Leviticus 12-14.