The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Ephesians 5:1-2,
"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."
Being an imitator of God and living a life of love comprises much of the material in the last half of chapter four through the end of Paul's letter. Paul provides us a picture of what that looks like together with the choices needed to be made in order to pursue just such a lifestyle. We are to take off the old, that sinful nature with its desires and acts, and put on the new, "created to be like god in true righteousness and holiness." It includes things like getting rid of all bitterness, rage and anger... every form of malice, sexual immorality and so on. It also includes putting on things like kindness, compassion and forgiveness.
I note, however, that doing these things do not make anything of us. Sometimes some of us develop a misunderstanding of why Paul writes these things. We are not to do these things in order to become "dearly loved children" but because we already are dearly loved children, 5:1. We are not to do these things in order to received a calling from God as a reward for doing these things, but because we have already received a calling that is worthy of it, 4:1. We don't do these things to become what we must already be in order to do them. We do these things because it is worthy of what God has done for us, because God himself is worthy of it.
The choices we make to become imitators of God in our daily lives are to be expressions of worship, not bargaining chips to receive anything from God. God has already demonstrated his love for us in sending his Son to die a horrible death on our behalf to pay the penalty for our sins. God has already guaranteed an inexpressible inheritance for us for all eternity - we don't do these things to earn it.
If Jesus Christ was willing to give himself up "as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" because of his love for us, is he worth anything less than our full attention and action on these things he asks of us through Paul?
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment