NEW CHRISTIANS: Guard New You Ephesians 4:3-27 Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of and produced by the Spirit in the binding power of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as there is also one hope that belongs to the calling you received— There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of us all, Who is above all Sovereign over all, pervading all and living in us all. Yet grace God’s unmerited favor was given to each of us individually not indiscriminately, but in different ways in proportion to the measure of Christ’s rich and bounteous gift. Therefore it is said, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive He led a train of vanquished foes and He bestowed gifts on men. But He ascended? Now what can this, He ascended, mean but that He had previously descended from the heights of heaven into the depths, the lower parts of the earth? He Who descended is the very same as He Who also has ascended high above all the heavens, that He His presence might fill all things the whole universe, from the lowest to the highest. And His gifts were varied; He Himself appointed and gave men to us some to be apostles special messengers, some prophets inspired preachers and expounders, some evangelists preachers of the Gospel, traveling missionaries, some pastors shepherds of His flock and teachers. His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints His consecrated people, that they should do the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body the church, That it might develop until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and accurate knowledge of the Son of God, that we might arrive at really mature manhood the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection, the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him. So then, we may no longer be children, tossed like ships to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, the prey of the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, gamblers engaged in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead. Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, even Christ the Messiah, the Anointed One. For because of Him the whole body the church, in all its various parts, closely joined and firmly knit together by the joints and ligaments with which it is supplied, when each part with power adapted to its need is working properly in all its functions, grows to full maturity, building itself up in love. So this I say and solemnly testify in the name of the Lord as in His presence, that you must no longer live as the heathen the Gentiles do in their perverseness in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility of their minds. Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. They are alienated estranged, self-banished from the life of God with no share in it; this is because of the ignorance the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart to the insensitiveness of their moral nature. In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves a prey to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity that their depraved desires may suggest and demand. But you did not so learn Christ! Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as all Truth is in Jesus embodied and personified in Him, Strip yourselves of your former nature put off and discard your old unrenewed self which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude, And put on the new nature the regenerate self created in God’s image, Godlike in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, rejecting all falsity and being done now with it, let everyone express the truth with his neighbor, for we are all parts of one body and members one of another. When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath your exasperation, your fury or indignation last until the sun goes down. Leave no such room or foothold for the devil give no opportunity to him.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 22:09:27 +0000
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