Living in the Light of God

We are still going to be looking into Ephesians. It is one of my favorite books!! The last few weeks we have talked about living the new life; what and what not to do. This week we're going to look at Ephesians 5:7-9 NLT Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don’t participate in the things these people do. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Oh man is this an encouragement or what?!! If you'd really like to get the full impact of this take some time and read the 5 verses that lead up to these. I love how it states here in verse 8 what we were like. It is painting a picture reminding us of where we've come from. No one is perfect and I can guarantee that at least one if not more of these sins has been displayed in our lives at one point or another. This section is spoken to everyone, that we used to be full of darkness. Darkness is often used to describe sin and our former life that we were held captive in. Paul is saying here that yes we were once in the darkness of sin, but now we are living the new life. A life in the light of God! Although we don't usually like the Lord to shine His light upon our lives because it exposes things we want to hide, it truly is good. God cannot stand sin, nor does He like darkness for the reason of hiding in the shadows. It is a choice we must make, to either live in the light of Christ or in the darkness of our sins. Being held captive and never seeing any victory in any of our life situations comes from the darkness. God is here for us and desires to guide us in all we do. We must walk in His light, invite Him to examine all areas of our lives. When we begin to walk in His light we begin to change, we begin to look at situations, people, and everything differently. People begin to notice a difference in us, a new spirit about us. This is the goal, not for us to brag about it to others but that we change so drastically that when we hang around people they compliment us saying you're not the same person. I pray it is a compliment, walking with God must produce positive fruit in our life. When we aren't seeing any good positive fruit or changes we must reflect upon why. Are we truly living in the light? For when we live in the light our life is right, good and true. It is where we are able to grow and be stronger in our relationship with God, and then with people. I just love these verses because it makes it so obvious that without God in our lives we'd still be in the darkness of sin. However now with Jesus working on our side and through personal relationship with Him we are able to live right. Live in the light!! What an honor and privilege to be called to living in such a great way!

This week reflect upon what it truly looks like to live in the Light of the Lord. How does your life reflect it? How does your life need to change to truly live in the light? Are you producing good wholesome fruit in your life? Is God's light shining so brightly through you that it's causing people to come out of their darkness? There are so many things you could ponder upon this week. Just start by asking God to reveal how brightly you're allowing Him to shine. Have Him examine you and walk in the light of Him!