Monday, June 10, 2013 - 4:40 pm

Reading through Ephesians 5-6 today, and 3 phrases in chapter 5 caught my eye. "Be imitators of God..." (vs.1), "...find out what pleases the Lord." (vs.10), "...understand what the Lord's will is." (vs.17) When I look at these verses all together, it seems obvious that not only is there a way to live that will please God and reflect Him to those around us, but Paul's expectation is that it is entirely possible to live that way! I can't count the number of times I've talked to someone and heard them say, "That's just the way I am," or the number of times I've believed myself incapable of change. I think it's often true that we hold out hope for others that, if we're honest, we find it difficult to apply to ourselves. Maybe that's one reason God has placed us into a community, so we can all build one another up when we find it hard to hold on. It's been my experience that when I rely solely on my willpower to follow God, I end up slipping up at some point and coming back to the hopeless conclusion that it doesn't work. These 3 verses are great pointers, and they show how to make it really work. Willpower is great, but without discipline and focus, it's only good intentions. To understand how well good intentions work by themselves, we just have to remember that the 'Titanic' was intended to be unsinkable. It's no wonder we lose hope, even if we don't realize it we're trying to do God's work in our strength. The key is to get as close to Him as possible, as often as possible, and let the time we're spending with Him have a cumulative effect on us. Discipline seems painful in a culture of constant immediate gratification, but there's incredible joy to be found when something we've been hoping and praying for, and working on for a long time, comes to fruition. Thank God that we have the hope of pleasing God that Paul held out for his readers.