Imitate God,
therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live
a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a
sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Let there be no sexual immorality,
impurity, or greed among you. Such sins
have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories,
foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. You
can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom
of Christ and of God. For a greedy
person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Don’t be fooled by those who try to
excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don’t
participate in the things these people do. For once you
were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For
this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Ephesians 5:1-9
Another “extreme” is assigning light or darkness to the
motives of what people choose to do. It
is called judging, and a careful investigation of the
meaning of that word, Biblically-speaking, reveals it applies to what’s in the
heart of another human being. And that
is God’s purview, not man’s.
In the news currently is the issue of abortion. Hearing from both sides of this bitter public
debate, ongoing for more than half a century, only the naïveté of a child, or an
evil agenda could say the issue is clear.
On the one hand, hearing from those who favor allowing abortion at any
moment, the ideal of freedom over one’s choices appears preferable, than allowing
9 judges to legislate her choices, when they’ve never even met the woman, nor
heard of her circumstances. On the other
hand, a choice to terminate a pregnancy is a choice to kill. And there are laws against that, with which
not many sane persons would disagree. There
are shadows of light and darness, no matter which way we see the dilemma. And so, we are plagued by either light or darkness
in our choices.
To live in the light, as Paul encourages,
is not as simple as not telling a joke with coarse filthy
language, or being foolish. The chair I’m
sitting on doesn’t do that, but it cannot be called Christian or Godly, simply
because it doesn’t tell obscene jokes. Neither
can we be called “Christian” because one attends church. Living in the light is allowing both heart
and hand (allegiance and actions) to be governed by He who has created us.
In short, it is a matter of what we do with that freedom
granted us. Not the freedom of the U.S.
Constitution, but the freedom with which Christ opened eternal life to all who
will believe. The true act of living in
the light of Christ is the choice of surrendering
that freedom in favor of serving He who died for us.
For You Today
You chew on that as
you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
For
other posts on this topic: Small Package - Big Message and Subway Sermon
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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