Eph 5:8 "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." NKJV
My wife asked me a question the other day on the way home from our visit in South Carolina. She asked me: "How do you look at yourself?" Now, how would you like to have a deep conversation with your wife about stuff like that? My response? "I look at myself as a child of God." Now, she had a point that she was trying to make, and she clearly made it, but my answer was a pretty good one.
How are we identified tells a lot about how we act and react. Paul told the Ephesian church that they were once darkness. He didn't say: "You were once in darkness." No. He identified them as darkness. Now by darkness he meant blind, ignorant, clueless. This is our identification…this is the world's identification. The reason we act certain ways and the reason we say certain things is because we are darkness, we are blind, we are ignorant, we are clueless. We should not expect people to respond in any other way, because they are blind. We should not expect most of our politicians to respond in any other way, because they are ignorant. We should not expect the Hollywood elite to act any other way, because they are clueless.
But at some point, something happened to these people in Ephesus. They became identified another way. They became light. They understood moral and spiritual truth. They could see. As a result, they needed to act differently. They needed to respond differently. They needed to walk (there it is again…walk…a way of living) differently. How? As children of light. This light thing didn't just happen. It came about as a result of a birth. A new birth. A birth from darkness to light because of the Light. Jesus said: "I am the light of the world." John 8:12, John 9:5. He also said: "You are the light of the world." Matt 5:14 Weird. Jesus is the light of the world and I am the light of the world…how does that happen? A spiritual birth. Spiritual DNA. Being like Jesus because I am a child of God.
Walk as children of light. Reflect Jesus. Do I?
No comments:
Post a Comment