This Week’s Passage: 3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed,because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater —has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.7 Therefore do not be partners with them.
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
So this is a longer passage than usual but I thought that the two paragraphs flowed together so I wanted to tackle them together. Still it is a lot to ponder.
As I reflect on this passage a few things stuck out to me…
1) We are God’s holy people – When we believed and were born again our unrighteousness was exchanged for Christ’s righteousness. We went from being sinners who would receive the wrath of God to being saints who would enjoy the presence of God. We became His holy ones – yes still prone to sin but now with a Savior who takes our sin away.
2) We live in a world of unholy people – Unless you live in a monastery you know this to be true. And this passage makes it clear. Every day we face sexual immorality, greed, obscenities, vulgar talk, etc. It is tough to live in an unholy world and not be tainted.
3) We enjoy dabbling in unholiness – It’s kind of like going to the ocean when their is a rip tide warning in effect. We know that we should not go in but that doesn’t stop us from playing in the shallow water. Every year I hear of people who drown because they got sucked into a rip tide – when they knew better than to flirt with danger. That’s what we do – we dabble, we flirt – not even aware of the danger that is waiting to suck the life right out of us.
Paul pleads with us in this passage to REMEMBER and REFLECT on what our life was like prior to Christ. It was darkness! And to REJOICE in the fact that now we are children of light. And to live as children of light. To stop playing with the darkness – experimenting with it to see how much we can get away with and still be okay with God – but instead to do EVERYTHING to find out what pleases the Lord.
So then, here is something to think about: How do you find out what pleases the Lord? Now that is a question worth pondering and worth the time it will take to do it.
I’m just sayin’!
Next Week’s Passage: Ephesians 5:15-20