In Ephesians 5:1 the word “therefore” links the words of chapter four verses 30-32 with what he is about to say. Again, Paul was talking about the putting off the old man attitudes and the putting on of the new man attitudes, which were all based upon Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins.
Now the phrase “be imitators of God” is an interesting one, as the word in the Greek is where we get our word “mimic and mime.” I’m sure most of us have watched mimes perform on a street corner, but what a mime does or what we do if we “mimic” someone is to copy certain characteristics of another person. Paul says to the believer that we are to copy the characteristics of God. To understand this phrase, it is best to simply ask yourself, “What does God do?” To simplify this, we can sum up all that He does in two words:
1. He Creates: God is always making things alive that prior to His hand did not live.
2. He Redeems: God, causes that which may have been alive but didn’t work, to work as He designed.
Now when you boil those two things down, you will see that what God does is “love,” so in the next verse, Paul qualifies what we are to mimic about God’s character.
What are we to mimic? Paul says we are to order our lives around love, which he defines as the way in which Jesus loves us, and then Paul very specifically says “and given Himself for us.” In other words, “walk in love” is clearly defined as self-sacrificing.