Category: Ephesians

“Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”

When Paul tells his readers to “lead a life worthy of your calling,” a few questions rise to the surface. First of all, what is my calling? Second, what does it meant to lead a life worthy of that calling? Paul makes a statement: “you have been called by God.” Sometimes we thinking “calling” means we have a specific job or mission, but all of us have been called by God to follow Jesus’ example in all we do.

Paul highlights some specifics of what “living like you’re called” means. Humility and gentleness are at the top of the list, followed by patience, love, unity with other believers, and living in peace. For most of us, that’s a to-do list that will take the rest of our lives. We don’t need more specifics on a calling when we already have our work cut out for us.

Here’s your freedom for today: God has called you into a life of freedom. Imagine for a moment if you and the other Jesus-followers you know were humble, gentle, patient, loving, and living peacefully in unity. If that’s not an inspiring picture of freedom, I don’t know what is. God’s calling is like a beckoning: “Come, live a better life. Just follow me.” Are you living like you’re called today? What is one area in which you could ask God to help you become more free?

“For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.”

Some people say there are many paths to God. Some say there are many gods. Some think all religions are basically the same. But the Bible is quite clear (and very different from other world religions): there is one God. There is one body of believers who worship God as a united whole. There is only one hope for the future.

Christians often talk about the “trinity,” a word you won’t find in Scripture. But passages like this give us an understanding that there is a mystery to the way God speaks about himself. These verses say there is “one Spirit,” “one Lord,” and “one God and Father of all.” The word “Lord” is certainly a reference to Jesus given the context of the letter. So we know that there is one God, and almost interchangeably there is one Spirit, Lord, and Father. Three aspects of who God is that cannot be separated but are one united whole.

Here’s your freedom for today: God brings all things together. God himself embodies unity in ways we can only partially describe well. He rules over all and unites his family together in ways we can only get glimpses of. We have one hope and one faith. There is one way to access the Father — the path that Jesus created when he died on the cross and then rose from the dead. God can’t be fully explained or fully understood by our limited minds. This limitation is why we must cling to hope and faith — he is bringing all things together and if you trust in him then you get to be a part of his amazing work.

“However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the Scriptures say, ‘When he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people.’ Notice that it says ‘he ascended.’ This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.”

Paul winds his way into a side point in these verses that is a bit confusing to follow. Recall from yesterday that he was writing about how there is one God and one faith. We all share one calling. But you know as well as I do that we are not all exactly the same. God has given us each different spiritual gifts, and Paul will get back to describing them in verse 11, which we will read tomorrow.

Paul references Psalm 68:18, and I would encourage you to read all of Psalm 68 in order to understand why Paul would quote this here. This psalm describes the victories of God, including his final victory in which he crushes the head of his enemy. In verse 18, it talks about God receiving gifts from  people when he ascended, but Paul mentions God giving gifts. How does this make sense? Remember where Paul began this letter to the Ephesians: a description of how God has adopted us and is giving us an inheritance. In Psalm 68 when God receives gifts and conquers his enemies, how does he divide his spoils? That’s right, he gives it to us as his children.

Here’s your freedom for today: everything God has is yours. When the kingdom of God has come in full, we will be able to walk freely as sons and daughters of God. He will not withhold any good thing. Jesus came and walked among us, stooping down far below his royal position, in order to rescue us. He ascended back up to the throne in victory, having crushed Satan as he overcame death. It’s all his. We’re his. And he loves to give good gifts to his children. We Americans may jump right to thinking about material possessions, but God’s eternal gifts are far greater. We’ll explore this more tomorrow!

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 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. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

Recall from yesterday’s post that everything God has is given to us as an inheritance. All of his spiritual victories are passed on to us, and he loves to give good gifts to his children. God’s kinds of gifts are eternally valuable, and in this passage Paul describes how Jesus has given the church special people to help advance the Gospel.

Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers have a unique role and calling to build up the church. Far beyond helping people pray a simple prayer of confession, these leaders help train, equip, and disciple believers. Most likely your spiritual life has been deepened by some godly leaders just like this. However, some of you may have experienced abuse or been misled, and this can happen as Satan tries to drag us down. You can tell a good leader by how they speak the truth: with love or with condemnation. Only one of those is anything like God.

Here’s your freedom for today: God gives us good leaders to bring life and health. As a counselor, I have heard a lot of stories about broken relationships and pain caused by humans to other humans. God’s work has a unique marker: health. Some leaders inspire us, engage us, and bring out the best versions of ourselves. They are imitating Jesus because everything they do is with genuine love. I have seen leaders who claim to do this, but they have a strong emphasis on “tough love.” A good leader who is gifted by God makes you feel important even when you need to be corrected. Real love is not tough, but gentle, just like God. Who do you know that brings you life and health? How can you spend more time with them this week?

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

If you have been reading along with us through this series, you will know that Paul is all about the Gentiles being adopted by God along with the Jews. At first glance, he seems to be putting them down here, telling his readers not to “live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.” In this context, Paul is referring to Gentiles who remain far from God and are not following in Jesus’ ways.

All Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, live a life united with God. Those who live separated from God indulge themselves in a whole lot of ways. As we look around American society, we see this same type of cultural acceptance of greed, impurity, and indulgence. Those lifestyles are not the way of Christ.

Here’s your freedom for today: you get to be a brand new you. You don’t have to follow the paths you see around you. You don’t have to live fooled by desires that will end up coming back to hurt you. You can live a holy and righteous life, which is an imitation of God. There are two ways we can try to be like God: we can try to steal his rightful place as ruler over our lives, or we can imitate his characteristics of holiness and righteousness. Trying to be God will destroy us, but trying to be like God is the very thing we were made to do. When you imitate God, you’ll like what you see — the very best version of yourself.