Ephesians 4:1-3 (NASBStr)
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
I love Paul. He is not only genuine and bold in his relationships with the churches he addresses these letters to, he is also practical and exact. He gives good doctrine and than shows how to carry that doctrine into the practical aspects of day to day living. In the first three chapters of this little letter he has given us some of the most powerful doctrinal statements in all of Scripture. In fact, the fist long sentence of chapter one is 13 verses long and has spent theologians reeling for centuries. BUT, he doesn't stop there. After laying ground work for our faith being fully and wholly in God sovereignty and Christ's work on the cross he now moves us into the ministry of the Spirit in our lives by telling us the goal first. We are to "walk" in a manner worthy of the God who saved us and the Savior who died for us. He doesn't just tell us the goal however (verse 1), however, he gives us five earmarks of what that looks like. Like navigational points on the journey of life, Paul tells us to walk in: 1) Humility (putting others first and knowing we were nothing without God's grace); 2) Gentleness (the ability to address difficult situations with the grace of God and love of Christ); 3) Patience with loving tolerance (the ability to allow God's grace to flow through you to others and allow them to be changed the way you were in Christ); 4) Diligence to preserve unity (the ability to work toward the unity Christ prayed for in the garden for all believers). Paul is telling us we have been saved by God's grace therefore God's grace should simply flow through us. We are conduits of what God has done to us and for us. Paul contrasts this walk with the way we "used to walk" in 4:17 and on. It would be wise to see that comparison. Like two different roads, God shows us how to live with God rather than self.
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