based on the LGG Study, Secure in Christ/w4d1
Read: Ephesians 4:1-6; Matthew 5:14-16 and SOAP: Ephesians 4:2-3
Eph 4:1-6I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, putting up with one another in love, 3 making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Friends, as believers, we must never forget that, like Paul, we have been called to live and love like Jesus (John 13:34; Luke 9:23-24). Knowing that Jesus was sinless and loved us even to death on the cross, it may be easy to think this is impossible and skip right over it. However, in Paul’s letter to the believers in Ephesus, He laid out four principles or characteristics to help them in their quest to accomplish God’s calling on their lives. Humility, gentleness, patience, and love are the chief characteristics, but he also tells them to “Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”
Humility is defined by gotquestions.org as meekness, lowliness, and absence of self. Biblical humility is not simply an outward expression or show. Instead, it is an attitude of the heart. Between us and Christ/God, it is a heart change that reflects our understanding that we are utterly helpless and hopeless without Him. We are completely dependent on Jesus Christ for life here on earth and eternity in Heaven. Likewise, we are utterly dependent on Him for godliness, ie, living and loving like Jesus. (This attitude/mind-set is a game-changer.)
Gentleness, as one commentary says, “involves humility and thankfulness toward God, and polite, restrained behavior toward others.” We cannot produce it in ourselves, for it is a fruit of the Spirit(Galatians 5:22-26). Gentleness has, by some, been mistaken for weakness. Yet, certainly, when we consider the opposites of gentleness, such as anger, a desire for revenge, and promoting oneself as better than others, we are able to see that gentleness requires great strength.
Every person is powerful. We can speak words that influence others; we can act in ways that help or hurt; and we can choose what influences will inform our words and actions. Gentleness constrains and channels that power. To be gentle is to recognize that God’s ways and thoughts are high above our own (Isaiah 55:9). It is to humbly realize that our worldviews are shaped by exposure to sin and the misinterpretation of experience. It is to accept God’s worldview, reflecting truth about the spiritual and the material worlds.
Gotquestions.org
Patience, in this passage, implies bearing with or putting up with one another (in love). Similar to gentleness and humility, it requires putting others above ourselves and living in the power of God’s Spirit. On the flip-side, In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul identifies patience as a by-product of love – so it appears you cannot have one without the other.
Particularly as it is used in the New Testament, “love” is not merely a feeling or an emotion. It means taking actions which benefit others. A feeling which doesn’t result in action is not biblical “love.”
Gotquestions.org
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. 6 It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:4-7). These were the words Paul used to define love to the church of Corinth. Love was also the answer Jesus gave to the one who asked Him to name the greatest commandment. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind; the second is equally important, love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31). Thankfully, we don’t have to guess what Jesus meant when He told us to love. In John 13:34, John records what Jesus said this love is to look like when He introduced the “new commandment” to His disciples, saying: “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Again, I urge you not to set this aside as something you cannot do, and as an extra measure of encouragement, I remind you, as I have often reminded myself, that God has given us everything we need to live a godly life (2 Peter 1:3-4).
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
2 Peter 1:3-4
Paul wraps up this list of characteristics by which we are to live out God’s calling on our lives with a final instruction (or perhaps reason) for living with all humility, gentleness, patience, and love. They are to practice these attributes… “making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” As we have been reminded throughout this journey through Ephesians, Jews and Gentiles were now united in Christ, and should live in peace with one another. As Bibleref.org puts it: “This unity ought to also take place “in the bond of peace.” Peace is another theme that Paul mentions multiple times in this letter (Ephesians 1:2; 2:14, 15, 17; 6:15, 23). Christ is our peace; He made peace, preached peace, gives unity in peace, and offers a gospel of peace. Peace is part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and important for every believer (Romans 5:1).”
When we live and love like this, we fulfill another calling of God on our lives, which is to be lights in this dark world. May we remember that to maintain the light, we must faithfully practice the teachings of God through Paul to “live with all humility and gentleness, with patience, putting up with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
The love Jesus has for his followers cannot be duplicated by them in one sense, because it effects their salvation, since he lays down his life for them: It is an act of love that gives life to people. But in another sense, they can follow his example (recall to the end, 13:1; also 1 John 3:16; 4:16 and the interpretation of Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet). In this way Jesus’ disciples are to love one another: They are to follow his example of sacrificial service to one another, to death if necessary.
bibleref.com
The More We Know
For more insight, read today’s Love God Greatly’s post HERE
Me From the Inside Out 