Beloved Children, Walking in Light

When I wrote, "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children" (Ephesians 5:1), I set before you the highest calling a creature can be given — and I anchored it, first, in love. Notice the order. You do not imitate God to become his children; you are already beloved children, and so you imitate the Father whose likeness is in you. And what does the imitation look like? "Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2). The love you are to copy is not a feeling but a self-giving — a life laid down. Christ did not spare himself, and the aroma of that offering rose to God. This is your pattern.

Now see what such love cannot abide. "But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you" (Ephesians 5:3). These are counterfeit loves — they take rather than give, they consume rather than sacrifice. And I press it further than the body: covetousness, I say, is idolatry (Ephesians 5:5), for the greedy heart has simply found another god to serve. Even the tongue is drawn in — "filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking" (Ephesians 5:4) — and in their place I set one small, mighty word: thanksgiving. The grateful heart is not grasping. It has received all it needs.

Do not let anyone talk you out of taking this seriously with "empty words" (Ephesians 5:6). I told you plainly that such things belong to the old order under wrath, and you belong to it no longer.

Here is the ground of it all: "for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8). Mark that I do not say you were in the dark — you were darkness, through and through. And now you are not merely in the light; you are light in the Lord. So walk as what you have become. Test what pleases him (Ephesians 5:10). Refuse the "unfruitful works of darkness" (Ephesians 5:11) — refuse them so completely that your very life exposes them, the way a lamp carried into a room shows what was hidden.

And how did you come to be light at all? Not by rousing yourself. I close with a summons that is also a promise: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14). You could not wake yourself from death — Christ shone on you, and you rose. So today, in the small and secret places, live in that light. Speak the thankful word instead of the cutting one. Give instead of grasp. You are a beloved child; imitate your Father. Grace and peace to you.