Imitate What Is Good

Scripture: 3 John

“Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God” (3 John 11; NKJV).

We are to do good, to imitate good, because God is good. Evil is not of God. Evil is of the Devil. As the children of God we are to imitate our Father by doing good.

Diotrephes was not of God. He was concerned with things that are not of God: preeminence among brethren, not receiving brethren, prating against brethren with malicious words, forbidding others to receive brethren (3 John 9-10). Diotrephes was of his father the Devil: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer and a liar from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44; NKJV).

Demetrius had “a good testimony from all, and from the truth itself” (3 John 12). Demetrius had a good testimony because he imitated God.

What about me? Do I imitate my good God or do I imitate the evil one? Let us see God and imitate what we see for “he who does evil has not seen God” (3 John 11).

Jason Cicero