Oct 27 2008
leave boldly
Here is a link to today’s reading
Ephesians 5:8-20
How many chances will you get? How many more times will you get to talk to your parents or play with your children? How many more conversations will you have with your friends? How many more days are you willing to waste in the sinful patterns that are so comfortable to you? If you had one month to live you would be naturally compelled to “make the most of every opportunity.” You would not waste a conversation. You would not waste one moment. Imagine how boldly you could face death if you knew that you had not wasted a single breath
Today’s Challenge:
Take a look at your life. From an eternal perspective, which moments are you wasting? Perhaps those moments are being wasted in sin, or by pursuing wealth and power. Perhaps they are being wasted because you are resisting God’s will for your life. Write down two ways you are wasting your life. Pick one and make a plan to replace that waste with fruitful living.
Textual Reflection:
There is a lot of great stuff in this text, but I will limit my comments to two points.
Firstly, Paul believes that people, apart from God, are lost. It isn’t that we can do nothing good. We can. I am so grateful for all the good things that many people religious and irreligious have done. But the good that we can do is not enough. It isn’t even that my sin out weighs my goodness (although that is surely true). Rather it is that I am in darkness and the only way out of darkness is for some light to come in. Light does not grow out of darkness, rather light pierces the darkness. This is the foundation for Christian ethics. That God has has come into our lives that were lost and given us the opportunity to live in in the light, and to live eternally.
Secondly, I love this phrase: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” Having been saved from death and darkness, God’s people have a choice. We can waste the gift that God hsa given us by returning to the fruitlessness and futility of our former ways, or we can live in the light with signifigance and purpose. This helps me solve a puzzle that bother many Christians. Having been rescued by God grace some start to feel that living a godly life no longer matters. Others worry that their continued sin cuts them off from grace. Neither view is correct. For those in Christ, you sin has been forgiven and cannot separate you from the love of Christ or remove you from Christ family. But my sin (and yours) is a return to the fruitless life from which God intends to save us. In this way we waste the gift of salvation and deny the fruit that God intends to bear in our lives.
I don’t want to die and have to look back at a life of wasted days. But that isn’t because I fear hell. Christ has paid that price for me. But rather because I love God and I want my life to be a testimony to the fruit that God intends to bear through my submission and obedience to God.
on the walk
-Ethan
