Year 5, Day 145: Ephesians 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge, Invitation

• Invitation: God is always inviting us into relationship with Him. He desires that we know Him and that we know His desire for us.
• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Ephesians 4 is a great chapter with respect to seeing the cycle of invitation and challenge.  God the Father invites us into relationship with Him through His Son.  We’ve been talking about this for the past couple of days.  We are saved by grace.  We are saved through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ as He died upon the cross.  I am in relationship with God at His invitation, not because I am great.

However, look at where this idea naturally leads Paul.  If we are in relationship with God, then we are challenged to rise up out of our sin!  He is pretty blunt when he says to not live as the Gentiles do.  We need to change who we are.  We don’t need to change with respect to physical things such as Kosher laws or circumcision.  What we need to change is our character.

Look at the examples that Paul uses.  Don’t be sensual.  Don’t be greedy.  Don’t be impure.  Put off your old self and let God create something new.  Be angry, but not angry in a way that you sin.  Don’t take what isn’t yours, but instead work hard for what you want.  Don’t corrupt the world around you with your worlds; build it up instead.  Don’t slander God, but embrace His seal upon us.

Invitation and challenge.  We receive grace: God’s invitation.  We are challenged to respond: the good works of God’s character for which we were created.

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