Imitation

C.S. Lewis provoked my thinking concerning this... there is a secret with imitation (especially with imitating God because He is perfection) in that it begins to become a reality. This is why obedience is so important for us as believers, even though we begin to try to obey God (and very unsuccessfull and wrought with wrong motives and attitudes!), God begins to change us, and the obedience becomes more and more genuine (especially internally!) and we actually become more and more like Christ!

This is entirely God's grace upon us, for on our own we cannot become more like God; we might become moral, but internal changes would never happen.

When we are obedient to Christ in our actions, I believe He helps us (and changes us) internally, which completely alters the person and enables the person to obey Christ even more closely (1 Corinthians 4:16, Hebrews 6:12, 13:7, 3 John 11, Ephesians 5:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:6, 2:14)

Perhaps this further sheds light on the relationship between faith and works... we obey God, not to earn salvation, but so that God can work in us... our motives, attitudes... our attempts at obedience are the evidence of our faith, but the successful obedience (externally and internally) is the grace of God, which even further evidences our salvation!