Eph 4.17-24

Psg: Eph 4.17-24
Date: 4/22/12

Read

So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn about Christ like this, if indeed you heard about him and were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus. You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God's image in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.

Record

Put on the new man who has been created in God's image.

Reflect

• Since we did not learn Christ through darkened thinking, fleshly impulses, ignorance, or hardness of heart, we should put on the new man through the renewed spirit of kind. The old man is in the image of this fallen world, but the new man is in the image of God. Put him on like a garment. Make choices consistent with the new creation, because that's how we initially came to know Christ. Sanctification will be by grace, just like salvation (cf. Gal 3). Live according to positional truth.
• There is no real reason given here, no "What's in it for me?" There's more of a sense of "Why would I live incongruously with the grace that saved me?"

Respond

You have saved me by grace. You are sanctifying me by grace. You are worthy of nothing less than living by grace, putting off the old man and putting on the new man.