We hear Saint Paul today teaching us to be imitators of God, as beloved children. If we takes that the slightest bit seriously, then we are immediately drawn to a great pause. Paul wants us to imitate God?!? That’s quite a big ask. Usually we are urged to imitate the Saints. And as difficult sounding as that might be, the Saints are at least human! They are like us, and we are like them. But we are not like God.

We can go right down the list: God is Eternal, and we are not. God is Incomprehensible, and we are not. God is outside the conditions of time and space. God is Perfect, and perfect in all attributes with which we speak of Him: perfect beauty, perfect truth, perfect goodness. God is not merely holy – He is Himself Holiness. God is not merely loving – He is Himself Love. He is the source of all, the lover of all, the sustainer of all. So, sure, let’s imitate Him.

Let us bear in mind words I preached last Sunday: Lent is the season especially to focus on holy lives, and the holiness which must be part of every Christian’s experience, because as Saint Paul teaches in his epistle to the Hebrews, “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” This is what Saint Paul is after: imitating the holiness of God. Or simply: that we are to walk in holiness. Walk in love, holy love, the holy love of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross: walk as Christ loved us, and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Holiness is the life we are called to live. Our lives must not be polluted by sexual immortality, or impurity of any kind. There ought be no filthiness, foolish talk, or crude joking, Paul says. Rather, let us always offer our thanks to the God we adore. We are to walk as children of the light, always seeking to discern what is pleasing to the Lord, and then doing those things as a habit. And we are to expose works of darkness around us, works of darkness we come upon, we are to expose, but bringing in the light of Christ. We are to follow God’s commandments – to love God with everything that we are, and to love our neighbor as ourself, that and all the other commandments of God. We are to pray daily, worship regularly, study Scripture as we are able, and perform works of mercy. All of these sorts of things come up when the subject is a life of holiness.

Yet holiness is also an attitude, a disposition, a posture or stance before God. We develop this attitude through being in right relationship with God, and here I mean having the right understanding of our relationship with God. Our relationship with God, from His side, is continuous. He is always keeping us in existence, moment to moment. And because He is Creator and we are creature, and He is perfect Creator, then He always has a perfect love for His creatures, a perfect love for us at all times. And as I said before, God is Eternal, God is Incomprehensible, God is perfect. He dwells in Light inaccessible, and dwells outside the conditions of time and space. When we think of Him, acknowledging Who He is ought to take our breath away. Our God is an awesome God.

This is where holiness emerges. We adore God, we behold Him, and then we look at ourselves. The sight of God comes first, then the sight of self, and all holiness springs from these two sights. To see God clearly and to see self clearly, we are drawn into holiness through the true vision of both God and self, and God and His people. We perceive the difference between God and us, and this difference is immense: He is Creator, we are creature, and each of us is one of countless creatures all created by the Divine Maker. Yet being like nothing, we are loved by God Who is the Maker, Creator, and Sustainer of all.

And holiness springs from knowing how prone to temptation we can be: temptation from the flesh, the world, and the Devil and his demons. Jesus provides us with necessary caution and wisdom in the spiritual life. Yes, by the grace of Christ unclean spirits go out of a person, and they are the better – the much better – for it. Yet rather than celebrate good times, we must have caution, our Lord insists. We must have caution and not let our guard down, because the demon is surely to return, and return with more unholy demons. The unseen warfare of the spiritual life requires constant vigilance.

And so we ask our Almighty and awesome God to stretch forth the right hand of His Majesty. We ask Him to be our defence against all our enemies. We ask His protection, we ask the protection of our Guardian Angel – that by His grace we are able to avoid immortality, impurity, filthiness, and foolishness. We ask the strength to reject the invitations of those walking in darkness – invitations to join them in seemingly benign revelry. We ask that by God’s grace our house is guarded by the blood of the Lamb – the blood of Jesus Christ, Who gives Himself to us always as holy Sacrifice that we are drawn to participate in His ever-living Sacrifice as He lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Get full access to Fr Matthew C. Dallman's Substack at frmcdallman.substack.com/subscribe