I want
to back up and review what we went over last week for just a second. Last week when we talked about how we are to
live our lives being imitators of Christ.
In everything we do we must do it as Christ would do it. Man, this sounds near impossible, Christ was
perfect, He was without sin. How do we
imitate one who is without sin? For
starters we turn our lives over to God, we say I cannot do this on my own I
need you God to help and to guide me. I
believe that there are far too many people who are saying I want to come to God
and be a part of His church but I need to clean up a little, I need to get rid
of some stuff. The problem with that
type of thinking is that we cannot clean up the sin in our lives. Only God can do that. But we have a great promise in the Blood of
Christ, our sins are forgiven and covered by the blood. So now we have come to Christ given our lives
to God, and we are told be imitators of Christ.
The
good news for us is that Paul tells us how we are to go about doing this, the
first thing Paul says is leave your old life behind. No longer are we to live in the darkness but
live in the light. We are to get rid of
the sinful nature, put on the nature of God.
Paul says; “So
be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity for doing
good in these evil days. Don’t act
thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will
ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you. Then you
will sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, making music
to the Lord in your hearts. And you will always give thanks for everything to
God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”(Eph 5:17-20) Notice that Paul tells us to be careful about
how we live, do not live as fools. I
find this to be really interesting advice of all the things Paul could have
said about how we live our lives, this is what he tells us. But if we think about it this is truly some
of the wisest advice one could be given.
So many people in today’s society are no longer living as wise people
but as fools, and are proud to put on the internet for everyone to see. There are whole shows of people making fools
of them.
How
do we stop living as fools, we start by being thoughtful using the mind that
God has given us. We are to “let the Holy Spirit fill and control us.” Many
people seem to think that once you been filled by the Holy Spirit you are good
to go, after all it’s not like you can be unfilled right? Wrong we can easily be unfilled; we must be
vigilant in our relationship with God.
We must continually be putting our focus on God and His Word so that we
will be filled with His Spirit. As we
grow closer to God the more we are going to come a where of the things we must
change in our lives. If we want to live our lives for God and filled with His
Holy Spirit we must give up our lives, the commentator puts tells this:
1. Confess and put
away all known sin in our lives (1 John 1:5–9). It is obvious that such a holy
Person cannot work freely in a life where sin is condoned.
2. Yield ourselves
completely to His control (Rom. 12:1, 2). This involves the surrender of our
will, our intellect, our body, our time, our talents, and our treasures. Every
area of life must be thrown open to His dominion.
3. Let the word of
Christ dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). This involves reading the word, studying
it, and obeying it. When the word of Christ dwells in us richly, the same
results follow (Col. 3:16) as follow the filling of the Spirit (Eph. 5:19).
4. Finally, we must
be emptied of self (Gal. 2:20). To be filled with a new ingredient a cup must
first be emptied of the old. To be
filled with Him, we must first be emptied of us.
An unknown author
writes:
Just as you have left
the whole burden of your sin, and have rested on the finished work of Christ,
so leave the whole burden of your life and service, and rest upon the present
inworking of the Holy Spirit. Give yourself up, morning by morning, to be led by
the Holy Spirit and go forth praising and at rest, leaving Him to manage you
and your day. Cultivate the habit all through the day, of joyfully depending
upon and obeying Him, expecting Him to guide, to enlighten, to reprove, to
teach, to use, and to do in and with you what He wills. Count upon His working
as a fact, altogether apart from sight or feeling. Only let us believe in and
obey the Holy Spirit as the Ruler of our lives, and cease from the burden of
trying to manage ourselves; then shall the fruit of the Spirit appear in us as
He wills to the glory of God.
[1]MacDonald,
W. 1997, c1995. Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments
(Eph 5:18). Thomas Nelson: Nashville
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