The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24 (day seven)

But you did not learn Christ in this way. vs 20

Having a toddler in the house means we are doing lots of learning. One of the things we are learning is how to dress yourself. I say this all as a disclaimer: if you see my son walking around the church with clothes on backwards or inside out, we are not terrible parents, we have allowed him to be proud of the fact that he put on his own clothes, and frankly, we are just happy he has clothes on.

Similarly, we have to learn how to put on the new self. We have to learn how to put on Christ. The goal at first is just to get it on. It may not feel like it fits quite right or may even feel backwards, but that is because Christ is counter cultural. To put Him on should feel different, but if we are faithful to put Him on everyday, the fit will begin to feel seamless.

It begins with a conscious effort, will I put Christ on today?

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24(day six).

Don’t forget verse 17 follows Paul’s teaching about the body of Christ (vs. 7-16). Paul is teaching the Ephesians that to live as the body (4:16), they must abandon old ways of thinking. So he is not just saying, “Don’t be greedy like unbelieving Gentiles.” He says don’t be greedy because greed and desire are the enemies of connectedness and commitment to others. Greed and desire pull people apart; they don’t bring them together. Greed and desire make others pawns to be manipulated rather than brothers and sisters in Christ.

So, brother and sister, what ways of thinking may keep you from deeper connections with your church family? Give it a thought.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24(day five). The point Paul wants to make is clear. Don’t walk like the Gentiles. Don’t behave or act like them. Don’t practice impurity or greediness. How did they get there?  How do we get to the point where we would/could behave like that (like the Gentiles)?

The answer is “peppered” throughout this passage. Futility of their mind, vs 17. Darkened in their understanding, vs 18. Learn Christ, vs 20. Heard and been taught in Him, vs 21. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, vs 23. We must be ever cautious and careful of how we think and what enters our minds. Paul points out that our thoughts and minds are actually incubators- for either sin and ungodly behavior or for holiness and purity. As sinfulness begins with corrupted thinking and attitudes toward God, godliness begins with a transformed mind, filled with the righteousness and holiness of Gospel Truth.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24 (day four)

The phrase “ignorance is bliss” hadn’t been coined yet, but Paul is already proving how untrue it is. The Gentiles were living in ignorance, hardening their hearts towards God and searching for satisfaction through lusts of the flesh. Their lives were anything but blissful. Anyone who has ventured down that spiral of sin would say they felt shameful, not satisfied.

Paul is telling us, ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s death. But we, the redeemed of the Lord, aren’t living in ignorance – we have seen Christ and we have heard his teaching. God’s plans for heaven and earth have been revealed to us and we’ve been given all truth through Christ. Therefore, we can no longer claim ignorance. We have seen the light and we can’t unsee it. We have seen the better way.

When our flesh inevitably tries to lure us back into that spiral of sin, when we’re tempted to put the old self back on, we must stand firm knowing that we have seen the fullness of light and witnessed the fullness of love.  After seeing the truth revealed in Jesus, we can’t go back to how we used to be, no matter how hard gravity pulls in that direction. We are accountable to what we know, so stand firm in the new self – it is through life in the Spirit that we find bliss.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24 (day three)

“They, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”

When nerve sensation ceases in any part of the body, one of the dangers is that wounds will go unnoticed and untreated; what you can’t feel you won’t address. This is true of the human body, and it’s true of one’s emotional and spiritual experience too. When one develops an inner callousness, panic can set in when the realization dawns that the ability to feel love, joy, sadness, hope – even pain – has faded or ceased altogether. In that panic, a person will reach for more and more extreme behaviors, greedy to feel something – anything. The mounting damage to one’s soul from such activity goes unnoticed because, again, the person cannot feel. Jesus Christ can restore feeling to the heart, halting the spiritual gangrene.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24 (day two) 

Paul’s encouragement to ‘renew the spirit of your mind’ gives us the sense of movement and growth. Earlier in the passage he speaks about how we were formerly, and how we are to put those ways of thinking and acting behind us. There seems, however, to be more required. If we are to renew, we shouldn’t be static. There is no indication this was a once and done scenario as in; you were made new and that’s that. No, this seems to indicate a continuous process. It is the spiritual concept of sanctification. We should not be who we were before Christ, but even more than that, we shouldn’t be who we were yesterday. This should be our desire. If we are aren’t growing in our faith, what are we doing? If care isn’t given we fall into complacency when we should be seeking renewal.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:11-16 (day seven)

It is not even November and I am already annoyed with all the political adds. You can’t even watch a football game or the news without being inundated with advertisements endorsing a candidate. To make it worse, it seems like both sides are spewing propaganda in a last ditch effort to sway the voters who may be on the fence. Yet, this scripture reminds us that we have been given something so much better than politics can ever deliver:

The unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God… the fullness of Christ.

The Church has been given as a gift to us from Jesus Himself. He has given us a place where those whom He has called and equipped will build one another up (unity) in Him (knowledge), so that we will not be tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men. 

This wording of being tossed is the same wording used to describe the stormy Sea of Galilee in Luke 8. Just like that one, Jesus will calm the storms around us. Whether it be a politcal season or bad doctrine, He has given us the tools to keep ourselves grounded so that we will continue to follow Him in the midst of chaos.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:11-16 (day six)

¹³ This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Ephesians 4:13

What if Paul is NOT addressing each individual but the body? What if by “full and complete standard of Christ” he is referring to the maturity of a united community of believers? In their unique giftedness, mutual strengthening, and pursuit of unity, they present to the world the “complete standard of Christ?” (Is this what Jesus means in John 17:21-23?)

We in the Western world automatically assume (always) that Paul is addressing the individual, but what if he is not? If this is true, then this places a superior value on the maturity of the body (the individual parts all connected and growing together) over the maturity of the individual believer.

If this is true and we take it seriously, it will change how we do church. Think about it.