LIVE IN THE LIGHT OF CHRIST
EPHESIANS 5:8-14
8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9( for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10and find out what pleases the Lord. 11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13But everything exposed by the light becomes visible and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14This is why it is said:“ Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
5: 8-10 As people who have light from the Lord, our actions will reflect our faith. Jesus stressed this truth in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 15-16). Our pasts may have dark times of cynicism, despair, shame, or self-doubt. Satan desires to lead us back into that darkness. We must reject him by intentionally living out what pleases the Lord (see Romans 12: 2; 1 John 1: 5). In this way, Christ’s light will keep shining brighter in us.
5: 10-14 It is important to avoid the “fruitless deeds of darkness” (any pleasure or activity that results in sin), but Paul urges us to go even further. He instructs us to expose these deeds, because our silence may be interpreted as approval. God needs people who will take a stand for what is good. Christians must lovingly speak out for what is true and holy.
5: 14 This was probably taken from a hymn well known to the Ephesians. The hymn seems to have been based on Isaiah 26: 19; 51: 17; 52: 1; 60: 1; and Malachi 4: 2. Paul was appealing to the Ephesians to wake up and realize the dangerous condition into which some of them had been slipping. Because Ephesus was such a crossroads of cultures and religions, nonbelievers could easily bring their ideas into the church. Assimilating these beliefs would be dangerous. We, too, must be alert to false beliefs infiltrating our churches.Tyndale. NIV Life Application Study Bible.
In todays society it is no different, from government to churches, people are always trying to do things that are not putting CHRIST first in what we do and therefore they are doing so in secret!!In AMERICA a nation founded on GODLY principles and beliefs we better wake up and start exposing and standing up for our CHRISTIAN VALUES AND BELIEFS FOUNDED BY GODS WORD.
ON THE WAY HOME WALK WITH JESUS and expose the evil we come in contact with and be CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT!!WHICH IS JESUS CHRIST!!!