How Not to Live

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

HOW NOT TO LIVE

Eph 4:17-19

17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

NIV

After being told about this becoming mature and attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, we now are being told, actually, Paul is insisting, which is the Lord insisting through Paul. We always have to remember this is the word of the Lord, no the word according to Paul. It is interesting in the interlinear it says, therefore I say and testify in the Lord, henceforth not to walk as Gentiles walk. Paul is saying this is from the Lord, not him.  We cannot live like the Gentiles, or nonbelievers do. It has to do with having futile thinking, or that Greek more actually says, vanity, what is devoid of truth and appropriateness. It is living in the darkness and not in the light of God. It is not having a heart sensitive to the Word of God, or the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is having a hard heart, unable or unwilling to listen to the truth because of the wanting to do whatever it wants to do, satisfying its own passions, indulging itself in all sorts of spiritual impurity and always wanting more of the same. It sounds might like an addiction to impurity. This is most likely in the sense of sensuality or moral impurity. When we look at the way or lifestyle of nonbelievers, with all their sexual conduct, premarital intimacy, cohabitation, same-sex partners, just to name a few ways in which they live in opposition to the truth of God, it is any wonder, God desires us to live differently. It is unfortunate many believers have turned this command into their list of do’s and don’ts which is more focused on many other prohibitions. We are to live in a manner that pleases the Lord, and in this context, it has to do with living with a heart that is sensitive to the Lord. We will see in the next comments the putting off the old self and putting on of the new self. But we will leave that for later. For now, we need to see we should not live with a hardened heart, but a heart that has been circumcised by the hand of God. When we consider that analogy, it carries the meaning of having the covering over our heart, that which hardens it, removed and exposing the most sensitive part of our heart to God. This allows him to influence our heart, our thinking and that is reflected in how we live. This is living in the grace of God, and we are instructed on how not to live.