We ended last week in the letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, and this week we continue with Paul, only this time in his letter to the Ephesians. Here, Paul is contrasting light and dark, in other words, good and evil which all boils down to the choice we have in everything, to either choose God or to choose Satan. We must remember that we cannot serve both. In Matthew 6, we are reminded that no one can serve two masters (meaning both God and Satan), for we will hate one and love the other, we will be devoted to one and despise the other (v. 24). Thus, God gives us the freewill to choose, either Him or Satan.
You might be thinking…well, I choose God for 90% or more of most everything in my life, and so He will understand and be forgiving of the faction of my life that is lived in sin, because I will just keep asking for His forgiveness. Friends, it doesn’t work that way. Paul reminds us in the beginning of Ephesians 5 that we are to imitate God, to live a life that is filled with His love, following the example of Christ, which means to be obedient to His Word with 100% of our life. We will never be perfect while we live in this earthly realm, but when we know we are living in sin, we have a responsibility to cry out for forgiveness, to turn away from that sin, and to ask the Lord for the guidance of His Holy Spirit to move us past that sin as we move forward with Jesus. Remember, we can’t keep going back to sin, we must be a willing and active participant in our faith to walk away from sin and forward with Jesus each and every day.
In today’s passage, Paul goes on to tell us not to be fooled by those who try to excuse sin, and really, we cannot partake in sinful behavior ourselves because we profess Christ and should be in living by the Word, which means we know better. If we choose sin, Paul tells us that God’s anger will fall on all who are disobedient. The chose is simple…light/goodness/heavenly realm/God or dark/sinfulness/earthly realm/Satan. It doesn’t matter how much we try to hide our sin, God knows, and He wants nothing more than for us to willingly turn it over to Him, and to awaken to His Light and from our dead living with Satan.
Ephesians 5:6-14 NLT
6 Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. 7 Don’t participate in the things these people do. 8 For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. 13 But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, 14 for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,
“Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”
Prayer: Jesus, thank You for taking our sins with You to the cross. Please forgive us, Lord, when we sin, and help us to turn away from sinning again and again. We want to grow closer to You, and we know we need to get rid of sin in order to do that, so we call on Your Holy Spirit to guide us and to quicken our hearts to press into Your Word for our daily lives. We ask this in Your Holy Name, Jesus. Amen