Tag Archives: Ephesians

The contrast between light and dark

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There are times that the most beautiful photographs we take are ones where there is a stark contrast between light and dark.  There’s something about the way that the shadows and darker colors make the brighter colors stand out.  Since moving to Henderson, Kentucky in 2011, I have probably taken hundreds of pictures of the scenery along the Ohio River from the comfort of my back patio – and over the last summer, I began exploring the many features of the camera I use and the effects that shadows and focus can have on the photograph.  It is truly remarkable what shadows and darker foreground objects can do to for the background of a picture.

As I was doing my personal devotion this morning I came across a verse that made me think of this particular picture.  While on Earth, the Lord Jesus Christ was teaching his disciples a way to understand their new relationship with the world around them.  He told them Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid (Matthew 5:14) and was demonstrating that now, as believers in him, they were to be different; they were to live a life that would draw others to Him.  He also taught those men that followed him If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light (Luke 11:36). This concept was well-understood by the apostle Paul; he wrote to those early Christians in the city of Ephesus, For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8). As Christians, we are to be different than the world For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another (Mark 9:49-50).

The apostle Paul taught on this concept of living differently than the world around us, Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man (Colossians 4:6). Even the apostle Peter taught how, as Christians, we should also strive to be different than the world and be ready to tell others the reasons for our joy and our faith, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing (I Peter 3:15-17).

I also think of how this teaching is clearly demonstrated in the teachings of the prophet Isaiah, Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not (Isaiah 58:9-11). Again, there is this concept that the believer of God should live their life different from the unbeliever; it’s been God’s desire that his believers would reject the standards of the sinful world and accept his standards as their own, Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine (Exodus 19:5). When you think about it, if we do adopt God’s standards in our life and live accordingly, we do become peculiar.  In five verses scattered through the Old and New Testaments, God calls his people, his children, to be peculiar people and to be different than those around them.

Just as in the picture above shows contrast between light and dark, we are to provide contrast between the lost world and God’s grace.  Everything we do, whether we are lost or saved, provides a message about us and what is important in our lives.  If we live like the lost around us and do those things that the lost do, whether it be for entertainment or our work ethics, it speaks volumes about our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  It tells the lost world there is no real difference between a Christian and a lost person; there is no reason to become a follower of Christ.  At that point, we have inoculated our coworkers, family, or friends from the effects of hearing the soul cleansing effects a real acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.  We tarnish the name of Christ, and we lose that savor we were supposed to bring to the world.  If we adopt God’s standards, meaning a full acceptance of the apostle Paul’s teaching, Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God (I Corinthians 10:15), everything we do takes on a spiritual dimension; what we do at work, at school, in the home, while we are running errands in town – all of it – we are to do as if we are doing it for God.  All of a sudden, the fleshly attitude of doing enough just to get by no longer has the same appeal to us.

As a child of God, we are all called out to be different than the lost around us.  It is not because we are any better, but because we have been redeemed by the love and grace of God.  Its’ his will that we should tell others about that precious saving grace that only Christ can give; we are to tell it through our conduct, the way we treat others, by the way we do our jobs, and even by word of mouth about the plan of salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ told Nicodemus that God’s desire was that all would come to accept that same saving grace: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:16-17).

The radical Christian discipleship contained within our hymns

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Every Christian denomination has them and if you are like me, you might even collect them.  Within any church, the church hymnal plays an important part of the New Testament Christian worship service.  In Paul’s letter to the church to the Ephesians he encourages Christians to allow songs of worship and praise to fill their hearts: Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19) and to the church at Colossi, he wrote Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16). The singing of songs that honor God not only is accepted as a sacrifice by God, By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name (Hebrews 13:15) but is seen as something that truly does make a difference in our daily walk with God.

Since becoming active in my Christian faith back some twenty years ago, I never really paid much attention to the words of the congregational songs sung during the worship and praise parts of the service.  I would simply stand, turn to the hymn that the song leader directed us to, and simply sang along – virtually the same thing that many of us do while listening to the radio.  It wasn’t until 2006 that I began to really begin to pay attention to my walk with God that it dawned on me how radical a message is contained within any hymnal.  A common song to every denomination, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, it has a simple tune, is fairly short, but contains a message as powerful as any sermon:

When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gains I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God; all the vain things that charm me most – I sacrifice them to His blood.

See, from his head, his hands and feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down; did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

Every time I sing this song it now feels more like a heartfelt prayer than actually singing a song.  Even if I had all the world could offer me and if I did desire to give it all to the Lord, it still would never be enough of a sacrifice to repay the love that the Lord Jesus Christ showed to me on that old cross on Golgotha nearly two thousand years ago. This hymn is rich in imagery and portrays the cost of my salvation – the cruelest means of death that man had yet devised – as the means to purchase our redemption.  The price that brought us true freedom is far more valuable than anything that we could possibly place any sort of value on here in this world that is tainted by sin.

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Sin: resistance or willful participation

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Over the last few months our church has had the privilege of spiritually ministering to some of the young people from the Earle C. Clements Job Corps Center.  This past Sunday, we invited the two that attended our church services home with us for some Sunday lunch and fellowship at our house before the evening church service and the nearly thirty-minute ride back to the center.  One of the many conversations that I had with the young man involved nothing other than the pains of spiritual growth.

He had a lot of questions about faith and about how to handle life in general; the area that really bothered him the most was sin and how as Christians we should handle sin.  His questions focused on a theme that every Christian struggles with – how to handle the temptation of sin as a Christian.  Almost immediately I began to think of times in my own life when I, through the love and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, had avoided sin and the times that as a Christ-professing Christian, I had willfully stumbled and sinned.  What made the difference between the two was simple – when I took the time to resist the temptation to sin, prayed to God for deliverance, and then made an effort to stay focused on spiritual things, I was able to resist the desire to participate in sin.  On days where I tried to do it on my own or where I had already been “exposed” and remained in the vicinity of the activity taking place, I would willfully sin without any hesitation only to be met with extreme guilt and remorse when the “thrill” was over.

The apostle Paul also discussed the battle with the flesh that he had continually while on his missionary journeys across the Middle East, Asia Minor, and southern Europe.  He wrote For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me (Romans 7:15-20).  Although this may sound confusing the first few times its read, what Paul was saying is that the things that he doesn’t want to do – yielding to temptation and willfully committing sin – he does so because of the nature of the flesh.  The flesh desires to fulfil its own lusts and the desires of the flesh are indeed strong.

As Christians, the strong desires of the flesh do not give us an excuse to willfully choose to sin; in fact, it makes it even more imperative that we understand our position, through grace, with the Lord Jesus Christ.  As a Christian, when we do fail and yield to the flesh and sin, we are separated from the blessings and joys of our salvation until we have confessed our sins.  The apostle John explained that when we do commit sin and If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). Not only does the Lord Jesus Christ forgive us, but John adds My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (I John 2:1).  Wow, what a thought that when we have sinned, all we have to do is to ask Christ for forgiveness; not only does he forgive us, but when we are accused by Satan for our sins, Christ personally defends us from the accusations!

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