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| …for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. |
| —Ephesians 5:8-10 |
If you have chosen to read very many of my nearly 1,800 blog posts, by now you realize that I am generally writing to individuals who, at some point in their lives, sensed the convicting power of the Holy Spirit pushing them to believe in the life-transforming power of God’s precious Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Said another way, for the most part, I have aimed these blog posts at believing “Christ’s-ones” or Christians. By so doing, I prayerfully hope that my words will encourage Christians in their daily walk along the pathway that God has laid out for them.
The teaching of the Apostle Paul, found in the verses at the beginning of this particular blog post, describes exactly the condition in which each one of us followers of Jesus found ourselves. “At one time,” Paul insists, “you were in darkness.” Truthfully, each one of us entered this world in darkness—the darkness of the sin-curse that we inherited from our parents and they from their parents. Then, at some point along the pathway of our lives, the Holy Spirit began to speak words of conviction to the depths of our innermost being. Those words of conviction prompted us to recognize that we were trapped in sin—the original sin we inherited and also the sins we had committed on our own.
The revelation of the Holy Spirit didn’t stop with that conviction. He spoke to our inner beings in such a way that we became fully aware of the great gift that God had given us in the redeeming power of the blood of His Son, Jesus. That sacrifice of Christ on the cruel cross of Calvary became a once-and-for-all covering of our sins with His precious blood. We had previously been condemned before the holiness of God. But now, we were redeemed! God had chosen us to belong to Himself. In fact, as we would soon learn, God had chosen us to belong to Himself before the foundation of the earth.
No human reasoning could explain why God chose us. We were not worthy of His choosing. Nevertheless, God did, indeed, choose us to belong to Himself. Having chose us, He drew us to Himself through the convicting power of His Holy Spirit. Once we began to understand what God had done for us, we became increasingly aware that we belonged to Him. We passed from the darkness of sin into the glorious light of His holiness.
The Apostle Paul proceeds from this revelation—that once we were children of darkness and now we are children of light—to urge us to walk the pathway of our lives as children of light. Paul urges us to live as children of light by discerning which decisions we make and actions we take will please the Lord.
So, the question that each of us must ask ourselves every moment of every day: “Am I living in such a way that is pleasing to God?” I cannot answer that question for you. I can only answer that question for me.
I can and do encourage both you and me to walk as children of light. In this moment and the next and the next, let’s determine, with help from the in-dwelling Holy Spirit, to live as children of light.
