dream-awakener

the larger life

so as i continue to work through the book of ephesians, i continue to be amazed at God's amazing plan for the world, something he planned long ago. this past week i taught on ephesians 4:17-32. paul begins to get really practical, calling the people of God away from the life they used to lead, to take off the old self, renew their mind and put on the new self. and then he goes on to give very specific ways in which we are take the old self off and put the new self on, and a motivation on why we should do it.

he basically says stuff like, stop spreading lies and spreading the truth, be angry but don't sin, stop stealing and start sharing, stop speaking trash and start encouraging others. if you want to hear the entire talk, you can download it for free. i think you will find it stimulating. it is entitled the larger life.

some of the questions i ask near the end of the talk is this: so why do we ever lie to each other? why do we get angry? why do we steal? why do we gossip or slander others, why are we mean in our speech? why are we malicious instead of loving and forgiving? we only do these rotten things if we think we need to construct a self apart from God. we only need to do these things if we are serving an idol, for an idol needs to be propped up and managed and maintained, God does not. we only do these things if we haven’t understood God’s love and forgiveness

you see, in our life you and I have a choice: we can either choose to construct a self in this fallen world that has idealized idols and put a blind eye to God’s presence in this world, or we can enter into God’s project and God’s plan for the world, to build a new humanity, a new way of doing life, a new way of living in this world. if we choose to serve idols, we will shrink and shrivel back into the world from which God called us out of, but if we walk with God and become a part of building His new humanity, we will experience the larger life.

posted by J.R. Woodward @ 11:45 AM