Ephesians 4
Chapter 4
(Verses 1-4) (1)To live worthy of God’s grace is to walk worthy of that grace. My walk should show the value of the love I’ve received. My Grace walk is the walk of a sinner saved by grace and it should cause you to notice something different about me. (2) My grace walk includes humility. I put others first because God already put me first. (3) My grace walk includes patience. I bare with others because God bore with me. (4) I keep unity through peace, God already made us one, we just have to live like it.
(Verses 4- 6) We must live as one body of Christ but recognize that thee Grace on each person’s life is different. we are called to do different things. The grace of salvation unifies us but the grace of God’s calling diversifies us. God’s gift was designed to be used through you but arrogance blocks the execution of that gift.
(Verses 7-16) The Amplified version puts verse 7 really well. “Yet Grace [God’s undeserved favor] was given to each us [Not indiscriminately] but [in different ways] in proportion to the measure of God’s [rich and abundant] gifts.
Does this mean that everyone in the church has one of these gifts? Yes but just because you’re “in the church” doesn’t mean you’re inside the church because the church is not necessarily the building, it’s the body of Christ. therefore Jesus has called us to serve using our gifts wherever we find ourselves.
Our Christian leaders are there to teach us how to lead others so we can all be united in Faith. but are leaders aren’t the only ones with gifts. any position you have is a gift that God has given you to serve others. We are building up the church but that means we are building up each other so there is less hierarchy and more collaboration. (13) the passage tells us that this process of pouring into one another will continue until will build up a spiritual maturity and perfection in Christ. In other words, since no one is perfect, it goes on forever. (14) However we can know we’ve reached spiritual maturity when we have known and lived the truth for ourselves so we aren’t so easily persuaded by the different versions of truth people feed us because they want to twist the word of God to be more self serving. (15) Spiritual maturity also doesn’t look like shoving the truth of Christ down other people’s throats. It looks like being so transformed by that truth that we are able to speak it in love out of service to others instead of a desire to prove we’re right. (16) As we grow in Christ, we realize that the body of Christ is not just a nice metaphor but it is really God’s divine design for his children to rely on each other to do the parts they were called to and grow in love with Christ as the head to lead the way.
(Verses 17-22) Maturity in Christ looks like walking different from those who are in the world. Those who are living outside of Christ are confused about who controls them are are bound to an inaccurate understanding of the world around them. Don’t look down on them or Judge them. Pray for them. Thank God that His God’s grace has revealed his Truth to you but, that same grace is there for the unbeliever as well so you should show God’s love in your interactions with them. Kill the pride that naturally rises us when you understand something that many others have not yet seen clearly. You’re not in control and you had very little to do with God’s grace upon your life. All you had to do was believe that the grace existed. The fact that you not only heard but also believed is a privilege. I am prone to self-righteousness which is a very backwards idea because by myself I have no righteousness. Therefore, I should aim to die to myself daily so that it is only God’s righteousness that remains in me.
(Verse 23-24) The spirit gives us new thoughts and attitudes. He may not give it to us all at once because if he did we might think we were perfect. We might think we didn’t need to sacrifice our pride on the alter of change in Christ. However, day by day, though constant prayer and meditation, through patiently seeking to know God, I come to know my new self, the self who Christ has created me to be in Him. Because I have a new identity, (or better yet because I now see clearly my real identity as Christ designed it) I can no longer identify with who I used to be.
(Verses 25) The old me used to lie but the new me speaks truth. The old me feels anger and lets it take control but the new me doesn’t allow anger to define my response. The old me took what didn’t belong to me but the only me trusts in God to provide for me through working in the talents he gave me. The old me used bad language but the new me speaks truth in love.
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