Articles
It's About Being Different
If the Apostle Paul were alive today, and still writing letters to churches, I believe he could write to any of us (churches) and tell us the same thing he told the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 4:17-24. You can read that, but if he were writing to the church in Snyder today, it might go something like this.
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the LORD, that you stop living like the people in the world do, in the futility of their thinking. 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. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
If you read the verses and compared them to what I wrote, you know that the only thing I changed was "people in the world" from the original "Gentiles". In Paul's day, the Gentiles were considered the worldly people, those of unpleasant associations and it was a term of contempt. They were considered "the heathen".
Scriptures like this are timeless, they are just as relevant to our lives today as they were the day they were written. We should take them to heart, and apply them in our lives as the inspired writings that they are.
So what all did Paul say? Stop living like the world around you, I insist on it. The world is separated from God, ignorant because they refuse to believe, but their thinking is futile. They have given themselves over to sin. But Christians are not to live that way, we have been taught a proper way to live. We no longer live like we did before we came to know Christ. Our knowledge of him brought a new way of thinking for us, and our goal now is to be holy and righteous like He is.
Today, let us take a moment to examine ourselves, and see if we are shunning the sinful world around us, and holding to the teachings of our Lord and Savior. We are no longer ignorant; we know a new way, a better way to live. How are we doing?
