Live as is Fitting for Saints
We have been working our way through Ephesians 5:1-7 in our devotionals as part of a continuing sermon series titled Be Imitators of God. Thus far we have learned that if we are to imitate God we must be holy, hate what God hates, love what God loves, and love as Christ loves. Today we will spend some time in vs. 3-7 as we examine what it means for us to imitate God by learning to Live as is Fitting for Saints.
Our devotions for last week and this week will cover these points in detail, so I do not want to be redundant here. Instead I would encourage you to listen to the sermon when it is posted later today and then use the devotionals to reinforce what we have learned. This is an important text for us as we often wonder how we are to live as Christians. We follow Christ and we do not want to be conformed to the world, but often the actual living of the Christian life is not only difficult to do, but confusing to figure out.
Many today confuse living the Christian life with self-help concepts, psychology, and a self centered theology that finds us attempting to use God for what we can get out of Him by saying and doing the right things. However, God is not a heavenly ATM machine up in the sky waiting for us to enter the right code so that He can give us anything we want! The truth is that we have been adopted by God and made a part of His family. We have inherited eternal life and all that is Christ's. The lie that is being taught so often today is that we must have enough faith to acquire and use that inheritance here and now so that we can have our best life now.
However, the new life that we have been given in Christ is charactrized in specific terms. We see in our text what Christians do and do not do. We see that as citizens of God's kingdom we are not nearly so concerend with the temporal - the here and now - as we are concerned with eternity. What does it mean to have an eternal perspective? How do we live as is fitting for saints? How do we follow Jesus?
These and other questions are answered in the message and the devotionals. So study hard! We have been given in the Word of God everything we need for life and for godliness. And what we have been given is not stuff - it is not things - it is TRUTH. We have been given by God's grace the desire and the power to do His will! What else do we need? And why would we ever become so infatuated with the things of this world that we would substitute things that will pass away for things that last forever?
How do we live as is fitting for saints?
Our devotions for last week and this week will cover these points in detail, so I do not want to be redundant here. Instead I would encourage you to listen to the sermon when it is posted later today and then use the devotionals to reinforce what we have learned. This is an important text for us as we often wonder how we are to live as Christians. We follow Christ and we do not want to be conformed to the world, but often the actual living of the Christian life is not only difficult to do, but confusing to figure out.
Many today confuse living the Christian life with self-help concepts, psychology, and a self centered theology that finds us attempting to use God for what we can get out of Him by saying and doing the right things. However, God is not a heavenly ATM machine up in the sky waiting for us to enter the right code so that He can give us anything we want! The truth is that we have been adopted by God and made a part of His family. We have inherited eternal life and all that is Christ's. The lie that is being taught so often today is that we must have enough faith to acquire and use that inheritance here and now so that we can have our best life now.
However, the new life that we have been given in Christ is charactrized in specific terms. We see in our text what Christians do and do not do. We see that as citizens of God's kingdom we are not nearly so concerend with the temporal - the here and now - as we are concerned with eternity. What does it mean to have an eternal perspective? How do we live as is fitting for saints? How do we follow Jesus?
These and other questions are answered in the message and the devotionals. So study hard! We have been given in the Word of God everything we need for life and for godliness. And what we have been given is not stuff - it is not things - it is TRUTH. We have been given by God's grace the desire and the power to do His will! What else do we need? And why would we ever become so infatuated with the things of this world that we would substitute things that will pass away for things that last forever?
How do we live as is fitting for saints?
posted by Phillip M. Way | 12:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home