Ephesians 4:17-19
Remember
the Futility
Remember how you lived your life before you accepted Christ? I can remember being a young man asking myself if there was ever going to be more than what was happening in my life. I know you can relate. I often think about what might have been if I had followed the path my life was on. For me it was a life of futility; go drink, chase women, go drink some more doing whatever would please me. I thought fun was all about things, and indulging in every kind of impurity. That was my thought pattern. It was all about how I could make myself happy. But living a life with no goal, or purpose, brings us to a place of futility. That’s the place I came too. Accepting Christ has been the #1 thing I’ve done in my life. Is everything I’ve done after that important, yes, but nothing will surpass my salvation and relationship with Christ?
Remember how you lived your life before you accepted Christ? I can remember being a young man asking myself if there was ever going to be more than what was happening in my life. I know you can relate. I often think about what might have been if I had followed the path my life was on. For me it was a life of futility; go drink, chase women, go drink some more doing whatever would please me. I thought fun was all about things, and indulging in every kind of impurity. That was my thought pattern. It was all about how I could make myself happy. But living a life with no goal, or purpose, brings us to a place of futility. That’s the place I came too. Accepting Christ has been the #1 thing I’ve done in my life. Is everything I’ve done after that important, yes, but nothing will surpass my salvation and relationship with Christ?
That’s why Paul is reminding the Ephesians In verse 17, about living a life of futility. The word “futility” is the very same word that we find in the Greek version of the Old Testament, particularly in the Book of Ecclesiastes where the writer of that book describes the futility of living a life apart from God. That same word is translated meaningless, vanity or futility, depending on which translation you use. They are words to describe the emptiness of a life apart from God. Solomon says in Ecc. 2:10-11,
Ecc 2:11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
Our spiritual memory is a lot like our physical memory – the older we get, the harder it is to remember things. God never wants us to forget what he has done for us. How much he loves us and the reason why he sent His son to save us. For some of us who have been Christians for a long time, we tend to forget just how futile our lives were apart from our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Satan’s biggest attack is to lure us back to our life before Christ. As we will learn later in Ephesians 6 we must wage spiritual warfare to stand against the enemy. More tomorrow...you are loved!
No comments:
Post a Comment