Act Like It

A number of years ago I read a book entitled God is a Verb. Written from the perspective of Jewish mysticism, it presented several insights that have no immediate bearing with this writing except for the title, God is action. A verb is something being done, activity not accomplishment.

“God is love” doesn’t mean that He represents what love is, like a glass represents a container of water. Love is a verb, an action of God’s character and nature. God’s activities, his involvement in and around our lives is best understood as the performance of love.

“God is righteous” does not signify a moral superiority, it is an event of accomplishment declaring acceptance with everything in His kingdom. All of us became “righteous” in the actions undertaken by God in Jesus, the Christ event in humanity. Anything we attempted, and continue to attempt, to mimic the righteousness we see in God, is a filthy imitation, a fabrication sorely lacking in quality and substance.

“God is just” isn’t a position of judgement but a movement towards reconciliation, from estrangement to sonship. Justice is not punishment but reparation towards responsibility abandoned.

We are encouraged in the book of Ephesians to imitate God, to act like him just as little children pretend to be like their parents. Someone once said that God’s attitudes are His actions. Do our attitudes resemble the actions of the one we imitate? Are we so settled in our accomplishments that we respond from the shallow tide pools of self-reflection or have we embraced the vast sea of humanity in its variegated composition and determined to advance into the fullness of who we have always been?

Yes, God’s ways are higher than ours simply because humanity has lived far too below our original design. We have accepted a state of existence which laughs at any notion we can do the greater works. However, doing, a verb, comes from being, not pretending.

An act of God has been pronounced, is poised over and upon your entire life. It’s time to put on the new you and act like it. Life is about what you’re doing, not what you’ve done.