August 18 - Ephesians 4:17-19

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

Paul insists that the Ephesians no longer live in the futility of their thinking.

Consider those words for a moment.  What he wants them to understand is that when a person is caught up in the belief that they can save themselves, they end up going nowhere.

We live in a culture where the prevailing belief is that we must do things on our own. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. The American Dream is all about doing the very best you can all the time and success and prosperity will follow.  You can’t trust anyone else, so you must do everything on your own if you want it to be done correctly.  Not only do we desperately want all of the attention to be focused on us, we want the satisfaction of knowing that we are in charge, that we can do everything … and anything and that we don’t have to rely on another soul.

The only problem is that this belief causes us to become very narrow-minded thinkers.  The only things that penetrate our hearts and minds are those things which we create.

Paul says that those who live this way … are separated from God and live in darkness.  Their hearts are hardened and fill themselves with all that the world has to offer.

There is another way … there is a better way and why we fight it is beyond me. Trusting in God for our understanding doesn't make us less, it makes us complete.