4:1 - A great challenge that goes along with my lesson in HS youth group yesterday. Walk in a manner worthy of your calling. You don't save yourself by living right...you honor the calling that has been placed upon you...you honor the sacrifice of Jesus.
4:4ff - If you ever have any questions about whether there is only one way to heaven...come read these verses. There is ONE hope...and that only comes through ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism, because of the awesome love of the ONE God and ONE father of all. Pretty clear cut, huh? We are called into a community of oneness. We serve a God who is the only God and who is the only way...I wish churches could get there act together, so that we could present ourselves to the world with the same kind of unity.
4:14 - We should be always growing. The more you know Christ and seek to be like Christ - the less likely you are to be tossed about by the false doctrines of this world. A good challenge to remember.
4:15 - I like this, "we grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ." In living the Christian life, we are saved by grace but our lives should grow up into Jesus Christ. If Jesus is the head - imagine that the head is huge - fully mature and the body (the church, us) is a tiny infant baby. To do justice and honor to the head we are attached to, we need to do everything we can to live lives worthy of the head - Jesus. Our lives should be a never-ending process of growing in faith and maturity...not simply staying the same and using the grace of God as an excuse to live sin-filled lives.
4:30 - Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. That is an intense little command right there. As followers of Christ, we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of God...that Spirit lives within us...we are the temple of the living God. When we take this temple (our bodies) and live rebellious sin-filled lives, we are forcing the Spirit of God within us into those situations. That grieves the Holy Spirit...remember who you are and who you carry within you.
1 comment:
That is a great illustration Brandon; the big head with the immature body. It is so true though! We are weak, and we aren't good enough on our own. God fixed that! He paid the ultimate price so that it's no longer about following rules. It's about the heart! But even then, though it is no longer about how good we can keep the rules, keeping the rules will save us a lot of heartache. Jesus died for all the times I will lie in my life. This does not mean I have a free pass to lie all I want. It will still ruin my reputation, and cause people to not trust me; and at the end of the day, people are just going to see this disproportionate body that is unpleasing to the eye. Father, I know that I am not good enough without you, and that the thorn in my flesh is necessary for me to continuously remember that I am nothing without you, but help me to be an adequate representative of you! Help me to do my part in being the appropriate body for you as the head! That in the way I live, breathe, and think may bring glory to your name. I love you...
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