Walk Wisely, Be Filled

Look again at what I wrote: "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16). I had just called you out of darkness into the light of Christ; now I ask you to watch your step in that light. To walk carefully is not to walk anxiously, but attentively — as a man crosses a swift stream stone by stone. The days are evil, the hours are few, and none of them will come to you twice. So gather them up like a merchant buying while the market is open. Redeem the time. Do not sleepwalk through the one life God has given you.

And this wisdom is not a vague thing. "Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is" (Ephesians 5:17). His will is not a secret withheld from you; it is a treasure held out to you, waiting to be sought and understood. The fool never asks what God wants; he asks only what he wants. The wise stop and listen for the Lord.

Then I set two ways of being filled side by side. "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). Both promise to lift a man out of himself; only one keeps its promise. Wine floods the body and leaves it emptier than it found it — a counterfeit fullness that ends in ruin. But be filled with the Spirit, and you are filled with God himself, mastered not into chaos but into life. And notice: I do not command you to manufacture this. It is a filling you receive, again and again, as you keep company with him.

See what pours out of a Spirit-filled soul. It sings — "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart" (Ephesians 5:19). It gives thanks — "always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20). And it bows — "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). Do you see? The fullness of the Spirit does not make you loud with self; it makes you glad toward God and low toward your brother. It shows itself not first in wonders but in a grateful heart and a yielded neck.

So here is your day. You will spend its hours on something — spend them wisely. You will be filled with something — be filled with the Spirit. And where you are tempted to grasp, learn instead to give thanks and to give way, for the reverence you owe to Christ. This is no grim duty. It is what the ransomed heart was made to do: to sing, to thank, and to serve, until the evil days are over and we walk in the light where there is no more night at all.