Post by Les Brewer on Jan 15, 2024 10:57:54 GMT
Flourishing or Floundering By: Anne Le Tissier
Click here for the Audio Message
Live as children of light.
Ephesians 5:8
Today's Scripture & Insight :
Ephesians 5:1-11
It was our first biology experiment. Chattering with typical eleven-year-old excitement, we set to work, wrapped in our bright blue laboratory coats. Lining two jars with damp blotting paper, we inserted a broad bean half-way down each one, between paper and glass. One jar we placed on a sunny windowsill, the other in a dark cupboard. The bean in the light grew strong white roots and a stem crowned with green leaves. The one in the darkness attempted to grow, but its frail roots, limp yellow stem and shrivelled leaves predicted it would fail unless someone moved it into the light.
Light, we learned, is essential for plants to grow and bear fruit. But light in the Bible is also synonymous with spiritual life. Jesus is called the light of life (John 1:4), so Paul encourages us to “live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). Living in the light is to “walk in the way of love” (v. 2), and yield Christ’s fruit of “goodness, righteousness and truth” (v. 9). It is to “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness” (v. 11) which means to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of sin. It involves living ‘on the sunny windowsill’.
Christ’s life produces fruit: love in action and godly character in obedience to God’s Word. When we confess ungodly behaviour that belongs in the darkness, and choose instead to live in the life-giving light of Jesus’ lifestyle and commands, our spiritual lives will not only flourish, but nourish others also.
Reflect & Pray
Are there any “fruitless deeds of darkness” holding back your growth in your relationship with God? How might picturing yourself flourishing on a sunny windowsill help you to resist temptation in the future?
Thank You, loving God, that I can turn to You in confession at any moment, and receive Your life-giving light to help me flourish and grow in You.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul often writes of what our new life in Christ is to look like. We’re new creations from which the old has gone and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Ephesians 5:3–7, he lists specific characteristics or actions that should have no place in the lives of believers in Jesus.
But the focus of this section lies in the reason Paul gives for leaving these things behind. The word for at the beginning of verse 8 signals that what follows is causal. We leave these things behind because we’re no longer darkness but light. Paul doesn’t say that we inhabited these areas, but rather that we were these things. We were darkness, but now we’re light. The actions left behind belong to darkness and have no place in light.
JR Hudberg
Ephesians 5:1-11
King James Version
5 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Click here for the Audio Message
Live as children of light.
Ephesians 5:8
Today's Scripture & Insight :
Ephesians 5:1-11
It was our first biology experiment. Chattering with typical eleven-year-old excitement, we set to work, wrapped in our bright blue laboratory coats. Lining two jars with damp blotting paper, we inserted a broad bean half-way down each one, between paper and glass. One jar we placed on a sunny windowsill, the other in a dark cupboard. The bean in the light grew strong white roots and a stem crowned with green leaves. The one in the darkness attempted to grow, but its frail roots, limp yellow stem and shrivelled leaves predicted it would fail unless someone moved it into the light.
Light, we learned, is essential for plants to grow and bear fruit. But light in the Bible is also synonymous with spiritual life. Jesus is called the light of life (John 1:4), so Paul encourages us to “live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). Living in the light is to “walk in the way of love” (v. 2), and yield Christ’s fruit of “goodness, righteousness and truth” (v. 9). It is to “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness” (v. 11) which means to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of sin. It involves living ‘on the sunny windowsill’.
Christ’s life produces fruit: love in action and godly character in obedience to God’s Word. When we confess ungodly behaviour that belongs in the darkness, and choose instead to live in the life-giving light of Jesus’ lifestyle and commands, our spiritual lives will not only flourish, but nourish others also.
Reflect & Pray
Are there any “fruitless deeds of darkness” holding back your growth in your relationship with God? How might picturing yourself flourishing on a sunny windowsill help you to resist temptation in the future?
Thank You, loving God, that I can turn to You in confession at any moment, and receive Your life-giving light to help me flourish and grow in You.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul often writes of what our new life in Christ is to look like. We’re new creations from which the old has gone and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Ephesians 5:3–7, he lists specific characteristics or actions that should have no place in the lives of believers in Jesus.
But the focus of this section lies in the reason Paul gives for leaving these things behind. The word for at the beginning of verse 8 signals that what follows is causal. We leave these things behind because we’re no longer darkness but light. Paul doesn’t say that we inhabited these areas, but rather that we were these things. We were darkness, but now we’re light. The actions left behind belong to darkness and have no place in light.
JR Hudberg
Ephesians 5:1-11
King James Version
5 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
