7/8 - Ephesians 5, Part 2

Ephesians 5
Continuing on from yesterday, Paul gives the command that we be imitators of God and that we walk in love. All the other things we strive to do as Christians - study the Bible, show compassion to the poor, share the gospel, pray faithfully, serve the community, etc - all will flow out of love; both for God and for others. He presents us also with the other side:

"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."

Just another evidence to the fact that this walk with Christ is a black and white thing. It's not fuzzy nor does it have 'gray areas' as the world would have us believe. Walk with God, follow Him completely, love Him with your whole heart and enjoy the benefits of His salvation OR follow the world & it's greed, lusts & pleasures and forfeit your place in heaven. I'm not trying to simplify Christianity, only the results. There's not many paths as some believe, there's really only two - choose today which way you will go (Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Matthew 6:24, Matthew 7:13-14, John 14:6).

Paul also relays that if we are to walk in love and in wisdom that we should submit to one another in the fear of God (or in other words - cuz He said so). Thus begins the famous diatribe on marriage - that wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church (v. 22-33). As I read this again, I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure you ladies are getting off easy yet again (see Genesis 3). Here, God calls women to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord and maybe that's kinda hard. He establishes a foundational principle in marriage which, if studied more carefully, really starts to work out for you ladies in the end. So what are men called to do? Be to our wives what Christ was to the church. Are you serious? Need I remind you what Christ did and is still doing for the church?! Come on man...OK, got that off my chest.

But seriously, for me this was a great passage of scripture to read over the past couple of days, especially with Kendra being pregnant. We're called to love our wives and, based on Jesus' example, pray for them, sanctify them with the Word, nourish & cherish them. Wives (can I say this?...yea, of course I can) submit to your husbands as he is the head of the household, regardless of income, education or spiritual maturity. Verse 33 is of particular significance: "and let the wife see that she respects her husband." God wisely commands us to do that which by nature we're drawn to anyway: women deeply desire love and men equally desire respect. I couldn't begin to do this topic justice in a blog so I'll wrap it up here. These things that we're called to do, we're also able to accomplish them no matter how hard it sounds. We're able because it's God's desire that it happen and somehow I don't think God engages in wishful thinking.

7/7 - Ephesians 5

This has been one of those mornings where it's tough to get through a prayer and thru reading the word. My old nemesis Sleepiness has tried to get the best of me again but I'm battling through. I'm convinced that my daily battles with getting to sleep on time, the snooze button, and closing my eyes during prayer are all spiritual warfare. Sounds silly, and I was even staring to joke when I typed that last sentence, but it's gotta be real. Sleepiness has kept me from the Word and I'm sure the enemy uses it because we don't suspect him of a thing. So, a cup of hot tea...and here we go

I think verse 1 is a good memory verse as each day this should be our goal:

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

All of what we attain to become as believers is summed up in this verse and so much fruit will flow out of it. The verse requires that we first know who God is before we set out to imitate Him. Actors who depict real life characters spend countless hours studying that person - their mannerisms, speech, tendencies, attire & habits. If the person is still alive they'll even spend time talking to the person directly so they can get the full picture of who this person is as they set out to imitate them. The best example I can think of is Jamie Foxx in Ray. I was able to enjoy that movie as if it were actually Ray Charles I was watching because nothing Foxx did resembled himself - everything looked, sounded and felt like Ray Charles. I'm sure it's the goal of every such actor, that when viewers see them on film, that they see the character and not the actor.

And so it is with us. We study God's word to get to know Him and there's an infinite wealth of knowledge there for us. We should want our actions, mannerisms, & thoughts to so model God that people see Him, not us. God's word to me these last few days through these passages of scripture has been "more of Him, less of me."

God, help me to imitate You today. I want to be pleasing to You just as Jesus was. I want the sacrifice of my life to be a sweet smelling aroma to You, that you're glorified in all I do.

7/6 - Ephesians 4, Part 3

God invites us, at our point of need - when we realize that we can no longer live of our own sufficiency but require His grace for salvation - to come to Him as we are (see 1 Corinthians 1:26). We were unwise, resistant to God, blind, spiritually dead. An old southern baptist preacher might say we were unrepentant, degenerate sinners!! God calls us in this condition, just as we are, but has no intention whatsoever that we stay as we are.

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (v. 22-23, cf. 2 Cor 5:17).

When God enters our lives He has every intention on completely changing us because before we accepted Him, we were nothing like Him. So it should even be our desire and prayer that God continue to change us because, in light of His holiness, anything that's not like Him, He won't even recognize (Matt 7:21-23). So for us who believe, we shouldn't say things like "Well, that's just the way I am," "I'll always be that way so get used to it," or "I'm just being real." That last one is probably the best. We use that to suggest that what we feel (about out language, our dress, our fleshly desires) is a more legitimate reality than what God's word says....that's probably a topic for another blog. God wants to change you. Anything in you that suggests otherwise, anything that wants you to hold on to things that are not like God is a lie from the enemy.

So the end of this chapter (v. 17-32) is all about embracing this newness that can be found in God. It's so easy to conform to the world. They're the majority and there's comfort when you're in line with the majority. There's comfort nowadays in believing that sex [or even living together] before marriage is not only normal but encouraged; that drunkenness, girl-watching, smoking, excessive TV watching, pornography, foul language....comfort in believing that all these things are OK. First of all, because it satisfies the flesh but secondly because there are no social consequences for it. In fact, I may lose a few subscribers to this blog. But God has called us out - "no longer to walk as the Gentiles walk" and that we "put off [our] old [selves], which [are] being corrupted by [their] deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of [our] minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (v. 17, 22-24; pluralization mine).

My pastor mentioned yesterday that we can't be like the world and be like God because the two sides are in conflict, in fact they're diametrically opposed. So it's my goal, my prayer that each day I become less and less like the world which will in turn mean I'm becoming more and more like Him. Becoming less like the world means being different, but that's OK. I think God wants us to stand out.

7/4 - Ephesians 4, Part 2

Yesterday I talked about God's desire for us to walk in a manner worthy of the awesome call He has for our lives. In verse 2, it directs us to do so in meekness, patience and with love. We see from this chapter that it's God's desire for us, in order for us to fulfill His purposes, to be unified in spirit (v. 3). Paul persists on this point of unity by describing the unity or oneness of God: "There is one body and one Spirit--just as there is also one hope that belongs to the calling you received--There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of us all, Who is above all Sovereign over all, pervading all and living in us all" (v. 4-6, Amplified).

He describes how God has distributed gifts to the body of Christ in the form of teachers, pastors, apostles, prophets and evangelists so that every need of the church would be fulfilled. Here I think a great case is presented for the necessity of church in the life of a believer. The next verse explains why pretty explicitly:

"His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints His consecrated people, that they should do the work of ministering toward building up Christ's body the church, That it might develop until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and accurate knowledge of the Son of God, that we might arrive at really mature manhood the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ's own perfection, the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him." (v. 12-13, Amplified)

You simply can't get all God wants you to get on your own. No matter how much individual study you do or what televangelists you subscribe to, you need to be an active participant on a local body of believers. He designed the church, the instrument He chooses to use to fulfill His purposes on earth, so that we might receive instruction & guidance through it and thereby be perfected and fully equipped. And as we're built up in the knowledge of God in our own study as well as the teaching and direction of God's anointed teachers, it protects us from being deceived. Verse 14:

"So then, we may no longer be children, tossed like ships to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, the prey of the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, gamblers engaged in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead."

Just last night I watched a minister on TV tell me about 7 prophesies that were going to change my life forever and bring me into financial prosperity. The eligibility for such blessing, from what I gather, were that I "sow a seed" or become a "faith partner" in his ministry, not that I change my life to model Christ & please God (2 Chronicles 7:14-18). So if we're not careful and fully equipped as the Lord would have us to be, we can fall to such a doctrine as this.

7/3 - Ephesians 4, Part 1

Thank God for our independent & prosperous nation and more importantly, thanks for a day off! A lot of lives were sacrificed so we could enjoy the freedoms we now have and if you ever need to gain an appreciation for what this day means (I know it's really tomorrow), take a look at just about most countries in the world and consider moving there. We're pretty blessed.

I never realized how full Ephesians 4 was of, for lack of a better term, good stuff. It begins with an exhortation to "live a life worthy of your calling." There's a mouthful. Let's take a look at just a few of the things God has called us to:

- To be His loyal friends: "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants...but I have called you friends... (John 15:14-15)

- Into fellowship with Jesus Christ: "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1:9)

- To good works: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10)

- To perform His purposes on earth: "for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13)

- To evangelism: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." (Matthew 28:19-20)

- To be holy and blameless: "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Ephesians 1:4)

- To freedom & love: "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another" (Galatians 5:13)

And in all this, Paul commands us to live a life worthy of this calling. That's a challenge. And I mean a challenge like asking me to guard LeBron for 48 minutes, compete with Bill Gates in a software design contest, and pairing me with Tiger all in the same day. It's not easy but we know it's possible (Mark 9:23, Matthew 19:26) and worth striving for. Imagine what it looks like to live worthy of all God's called you, and thus far allowed you, to be.... Looks kinda crazy huh?

Again, there's a lot in this chapter and I'd like to study it a bit more. Lord willing, more on this chapter tomorrow

7/2 - Corporate Prayer

In our Bible study last night we discussed, and experienced, corporate prayer. It was great being able to share in that with the group. We've had the pleasure of experiencing answered prayer together and I think that reflecting back on answered prayers encourages us and help us to view God in a more real way, especially when the enemy attacks us so often with doubt and fear. We also discussed this article, which gave me a new insight on the purpose and effectiveness of corporate prayer.

http://www.gotquestions.org/corporate-prayer.html

7/1 - Ephesians 2

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." (v. 8-9)

Paul makes this beautiful statement as a reminder to the Ephesians that their salvation, their peace, their hope, is all a direct result of God's grace and had nothing whatsoever to do with them. What's true for them, is just as true for us today. There's no amount of Bible studies, church services, or any other spiritual acts that we could do that would cause God to save us. It is His grace alone that allows us access to Him and the eternal life He offers.

Before Paul gives them this answer, he gives them some background on themselves which I believe is invaluably important to understanding the grace he talks about here. As we read this, it serves us well to take all the "you" references very personally:

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts...remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." (v. 1-3, 12)

It's important for us to remember that we haven't always been saved. It gives us an appreciation for His grace and for verses 4- 5: "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved." In today's times, we're exposed to so much mess: billionaires who swindle thousands of people out of money, governors having affairs, countless murderers, nuclear war threats, raping, brutal crimes against children (this is all from just this week's news by the way). The conversations I hear about the people who commit these deeds, among Christians and non-Christians alike, is along the lines of"how could he think he could get away with it?", "he should get 150 years in jail for his unforgivable offense", "how could someone do something like that?" A brief realization of the passage above could clue us in to the fact that we, who consider ourselves incapable of these sort of things, were once lost in our trespasses and if it had not been for God's grace, it could have very easily been us. Our response then, shouldn't be "thank God I'm not like those sinners," because we see how Jesus felt about this attitude in Luke 18:11-14. It should rather be like the tax collector in this passage who realizes his unworthiness in light of God's mercy. Thank you God for your grace & mercy today.