Imitate

August 8, 2026

“Therefore I urge you, imitate me.” 1 Corinthians 4:16

“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1

Many of you know me as a soccer fan, but I am also a basketball fan. I used to play basketball so much when I was in middle school and high school. I remember those days when, on Sunday, I would play basketball for hours and hours until the sun set. I remember those weekday evenings when I would sneak out of a personal study session (In Korea, education is very strict and competitive, so schools had mandatory evening study sessions where students were forced to do personal studies at school. For me, I was at school until 10 p.m.) just to play basketball with friends. On lucky days, we wouldn’t be caught by our teachers, and we would be spanked pretty hard.

Basketball was a boom in Korea in the 90’s, when I was in school, because of a popular Japanese comic book called ‘Slam Dunk.’ This series was a huge sensation among Korean boys like me. It inspired us to play ball. I remember studying the comic carefully to improve my basketball handling (dribbling) skills or my shooting form. I ‘imitated’ the comic book to improve my basketball skills.

When I was a freshman in college, one of the required classes was preaching. I don’t remember much from that class, but one of the few things I remember was that the professor told us to copy sermons from famous preachers. He was not teaching us to plagiarize. He wanted us to ‘imitate’ well-known speakers. That was one way to improve our speaking skills.

Paul tells us to ‘imitate.’ And we must ‘imitate’ Jesus Christ. There is no shame in imitating Christ. That’s what Jesus wants from us. It will help us to be like Him. Let us imitate.