My nature, our nature, and being wise.

“Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” –Paul (Ephesians 5:15-16)

The study and the application of Ephesians 5 is something that no Christian should take lightly, but at the heart of the matter you need to realize how far it stretches to the core of each person. Here is what we know about human nature, we all are prone to evil. Our human nature loves to do things that are evil (Matthew 15:19). Our very nature is full of selfishness and conceit. Most of the time we mask it but a lot of what we do is to pleasure ourselves. That’s the curse. Our nature or sometimes referred to as our flesh and our flesh wars against our spirit. I am not an exception. There are many times where I just love to not do the right thing. Not the illegal thing, just not the right thing, things such as putting my focus upon possessions, having lustful thoughts. The verse here explains our war against our own desires. Paul tells us to “Be very careful,” to how we live. Our very actions can cause us to slide back to our old nature. Paul’s suggestion here in Ephesians 5 is to kick evil to the curve. Extract it out of life. But the way to do that is to live a life that is wise. Solomon in Proverbs says that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Therefore to be wise, we must be wholeheartedly pursing Christ with all of our hearts. Here also though Paul explains that we must make the most of every opportunity. One commentary said that this is phrase literally means “buying the opportunity”, which is a merchant term where they can maximize their sales and trade. So we as Christians are called to make most of our time to do good because as Paul explains the days are evil that lies ahead of us. It maybe not necessarily that the days are wicked, but the days where there is trouble ahead. So in summary our nature begs us to do evil but we must be wiser so that we can take every minute of over lives as a dedication to Christ.

As a follower of Christ, this verse just rips into my soul. The very nature of what it requires us to do is to fight against what we so easily love to do. I look at this and it just makes me realize that I desperately need Jesus. I’m not going to lie, I am a selfish individual. I love to do things for me. I want to live a life of comfort, excess, ease, and extravagance. But I know that none of that compares with the life that God desires for my life. Time is short and the ultimate question that I should be wrestling with everyday should be, “Am I being wise or unwise?” Am I maxing out my life for the desires of Christ? Oh I hope to be. I want that. I really want that.

Lord my nature pulls me away from you, help me to be wise.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Living with the opportunity

Matthew 25:14-15 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability.” This passage has been such a difficult thing to figure out. It has been something that I have been dealing with and something that I have been longing to understand. Many people see that as that God gives you talents and you got to take your talents and live for God. But what are talents. It has been explained talent to be either your real talents, or money, or something God gives you. However, there is a distinction between talent and ability here. After reading this commentary ( http://www.raystedman.org/new-testament/matthew/living-dangerously) it seems that things make more sense here. Talent, the way we know talent, according to this passage is ability, and talent as referred to in this setting is opportunity. The property owne
Read more

When God ask you to do something crazy...

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Dibaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. -Hosea 1:2-3 Now this is kind of a crazy assignment. It’s not like he says go and build a church, or go preach to the people, or fast for the nation. No, God told him to go take a WHORE for a wife. It doesn’t even sound Biblical. But that is what you see, God giving a very different task. Hosea’s first assignment, marry a whore. God asked Hosea to do something crazy. But what you see here is that Hosea, he DOES IT!. Without question, he just does it, he is very obedient to God. Though it’s sort of a strange situation, I am encouraged by Hosea’s obedience. Now, I don’t know about you, if one of the first big assignments God gives me is to go out and marry a whore, not sure how I would take that.
Read more

He Provides Our REAL Needs

  Acts 3:6-8 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. The beggar was asking for gold and silver, he was asking for things that he thought would satisfy him. But in reality it wasn’t what he really needed.  God knew that his real needs differed from what he was begging for.  In those times, if you were not capable of work, or able to walk, you were just cast away to the side. Daily he was put there by someone, to just beg all day long. He did this his whole life. This is how he was born, he was regulated to fend for himself by asking for money daily.  It made sense, money equaled ability to buy food and then you are able to eat. The beggar knew his place in society  because of
Read more