Tidbits Part III

I took a little over a week off from blogging because I honestly didn’t want to be a part of all the shenanigans surrounding last week’s Supreme Court buzz. And soon you’ll see why…

“Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people… You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.” Ephesians 5:3, 5-6

I’m not going to go into detail about what sexual immorality or impurity might mean here. Why? Because I believe that each one of us knows when we are sinning. Very rarely do we sin out of ignorance. When we make lists of what defines “sexual sin”, we are either trying to point fingers at a speck in our sinful neighbor’s eye, or we’re attempting to excuse our own behavior. God gives us a clear picture of what is right and wrong. Sure, each person has the ability to interpret Scripture as they wish, but that is ultimately between the individual and God.

Time out…notice I said “ability”. I didn’t say that we all have the right to interpret Scripture as we wish. Read what Peter says about Paul’s writing…

“…Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him–speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.” 2 Peter 3:15-16

Don’t get mad at me 🙂 I didn’t write that! Again, we have the ability to interpret…but what we do with that is forced to either line up with God’s intentions or we are against Him. We cannot serve two masters.

With all that being said, let’s go back to the original passage at hand. Paul urges us to refrain from immorality (which, I will point out, is based on morality derived from God’s standards–that’s why unbelievers have such a hard time accepting it), impurity, and greed.

In thinking about impurity, I thought about how Jesus called the Church His Bride. One of the things a bride does before her wedding is maintain purity. She doesn’t sleep around, defile herself, make a bad name for her future husband, or sow wild oats. She keeps herself pure so that when the big day comes, she and her husband will come together to form a beautiful union (not perfect, but as close as they can!). I believe that’s exactly what Paul is directing us toward when calling us to rid ourselves of impurity. He gives us Christ’s example in purifying the Church…

“He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other belmish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.” Ephesians 5:25-27

Yes, Jesus’ blood made us holy and blameless in God’s eyes, and for that we can rejoice! At the same time, Paul (the same one who wrote the above passage…) tells us that we’re also responsible for maintaining purity. Why? Because we are the Bride of Christ–the wedding day hasn’t come. We are chosen and we are called as His own…but there is still work to be done to prepare ourselves for His return!

And as a reminder of why and how we’re called to leave these things behind, Paul shares these words…

“Don’t participate in the things these people do. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and true.” Ephesians 5:7-9

That’s how, friend. It all goes back to what we first talked about. Since we have heard about Jesus, we can throw off the old man and put on our new nature, renewed by the Spirit! We don’t accomplish these things, any lasting change, outside of the Light. It’s like trying to put on make-up with the bathroom light turned off. (Go try it and see how pretty you look 🙂 ) It’s only when we allow the Lord to shed light on our lives–our weakness, our shortcomings, our old man–that we have the power to grow and change into the pure Bride He longs for us to be.

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