Dr. Randy Carlson
The Book of Ephesians contains the biblical basis for the why for us to choose to live an intentional life in Christ. For those of us who follow Christ, it’s important to understand “why” we choose to live intentionally.
The first three chapters contain the orthodoxy of our faith – our position in Christ. We covered that in part one of this blog. Then Paul turns in a different direction saying, as a result of everything I just said in the first three chapters, here is how I want you to live your life (paraphrased). Now we are going to see in these last three chapters briefly how we are to live our lives intentionally.
- Walk worthy of your calling. The very next sentence from the pen of the Apostle Paul, says: Therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you to have a walk worthy of the calling with you were called (Ephesians 4:1). Paul turns from belief to behavior.
- Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Our minds are the seed of what gets us in trouble in our lives. If you are having problems in your relationships, it starts right here.
As you read through Ephesians, our head, heart, hands, thinking, emotions and our behavior can either be under the authority of the Holy Spirit, or they can be under our own control. Paul tells us here to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. You do that by prayer, by reading, by meditating and by telling yourself the truth.
- Work with your own hands. Let him who stole steal no longer, but, rather, let him labor working with his hands what is good that he may have something to give him who has need (Ephesians 4:28 ESV).
- Use your time wisely. Making the best use of the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16). Time is a precious thing.
Today, we occupy our time with a lot of distractions and not use the time that God’s given us. Really, it’s all we have. We get about 27,000 days on the planet (see Psalm 90:12). I can’t think of anything more valuable than using the time we have to reach someone for Christ.
- Be filled with the spirit (Ephesians 5:18). The Holy Spirit is in you. He comes into our lives when we accept Him as our Savior. But every day there we need to make sure He is filling every aspect of our lives. There’s power when we humbly ask the spirit of God to direct us in how we are going to live our lives every day.
- Work as unto the Lord. Paul said, With goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men (Ephesians 6:7). Ultimately what matters is what we do for God.
Without a why in life, the how and the what really doesn’t matter all that much, because many of us live in the what and how of life. What do we do? How do we do it? And we’re busy, but if we don’t get the why clearer, then we live our lives in a way that sometimes we wake up and say why am I doing this? Whys are important because then you better understand the how and what.
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