AWAKE FROM SLEEP: Devotion for Tuesday August 30, 2016

AWAKE FROM SLEEP: Devotion for Tuesday August 30, 2016

Text: Ephesians 5:12 – 20       Memory verse: Ephesians 5:14

Paul teaches us here that as Christians, we should stand for the truth and we shouldn’t get caught up in gossip about the shameful actions of sinful people (Ephesians 5:12). The need for Christians to stand up for the truth cannot be overemphasized. This is so because it is the truth that will set us free. Jesus Christ asserted that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (see John 14:6).  

Paul cautioned us that we should not promote or dignify sin by even so much as discussing it. This is very important aspect of our bible reading today. Discussing sin defiles us how much more committing it. The reason for this is because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Nothing can hide from the light piercing through darkness. The believers’ behaviour and character are the ‘rays’ of that light that shines to reveal the darkness surrounding unbelievers. By our actions (5:8–12), we become instruments of light, exposing the dark acts of sin. Paul 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 right. Christians must lovingly speak out for what is true and right.

It is for this reason the Apostle calls on compromising Christians to wake up from sleep (5:14) and begin to live for Christ. What Paul was stressing here is that the Ephesians should wake up and realize the dangerous condition into which some of them had been slipping into through condoning sin and inability to speak out against it. Are these things not seen in our present day Christendom? Are we not unperturbed and senseless in the darkness, and pollution of sin? We should wake from death in sin to a sense of our guilty, lost condition, and look to Him who died for us, and He will make us light. We should redeem the time we have lost while asleep by being active for God. God is waiting for you to act. Start now (Isaiah 60:1)   

Food for Thought: Romans 13:11 & 12

Prayer: Almighty God, give us grace to cast way the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility so that on the last day, when He shall come again in His glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through Him who is alive and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen. (Collect for Advent Sunday).