"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;" Eph. 5:1

The world tells us that following God just means there are a lot of fun things you cannot do. Paul has a much different take on that. He tells us to follow God as dear children. This means with a complete trust, but it also means with complete joy!

Do you remember playing "Follow the Leader" when you were young? All the children would make a line and whatever the leader at the front of the line would do, all the children would copy. If the leader walked, the children walked. If the leader waved his arms in the air, the children would all do the same. All the while, everyone was SMILING!

I think this is exactly what Paul has in mind. Our God enjoys His creation, and so should we. The way we do that is to play follow the leader with Him!

In the 5th Chapter of Ephesians, Paul describes to us how our Leader plays the game. Our Savior was full of joy throughout His earthly ministry. That is one of the main reasons so many people wanted to be around Him. He enjoyed healing the hurting. He enjoyed giving sight to the blind. He enjoyed feeding the hungry. He enjoyed raising the dead. His source of joy was blessing other people.

To find the joy that Jesus has, all we have to do is follow the leader. In this coming year, I pray you find true joy. Just be a blessing and see what happens!