Waking up to the light

"What makes everything clear is light.  Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and the Messiah will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:14)

Every once in a while I'll come across something that stops me in my tracks and forces me to consider where I am spiritually.  Ephesians 5:14 did that to me this morning.  In fact, as I've been reading through the book of Ephesians the past couple of weeks it's been doing some pretty regular tail-kickin' on me.

It's so easy to read Scripture and want to apply it to other people's lives and not my own.  For instance, Ephesians 5:5 points out that those who are involved in sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, and the like aren't fit for the kingdom of God.  When I read that my mind automatically tries to picture the worst kind of people in the world, those who are as lost as a BB in weeds.  How sad it is for them to be so far from God and what a horrific future awaits them if they don't surrender to Christ.

And then it hits me.  I'm guilty of those same kinds of things.  It's not the lost that I need to be focusing on with these truths but rather it's me.  How fit am I for the kingdom of God?

Ephesians 5:6-14 illustrates the contrast between dark and light, fruit born for God as compared to a fruitless life that's not worth much.  We must wake up from our spiritual slumber and be children of light, refusing to participate in the works of the darkness.  Part of the deception of the darkness is that much of what I do that is fruitless is done in secret, in the shadow of darkness.  That's what darkness does - it conceals things and tries to block out the light.  Awaking from my spiritual sleep exposes the darkness for what it is and makes everything clear.  I can no longer harbor my secret little sins that I hope that no one else will ever know about.  Once I am committed to walking in light and shunning the darkness, then I am ready for the light of the Messiah to shine on me.

Our relationship with Christ has never been dependent upon the do's and don'ts that we strive to follow, oftentimes in utter futility.  Rather, our lives are to be in constant motion with Christ.  When that's the case, our actions will mirror His life and the light will shine in and through us.  It's time to wipe the sleep out of our eyes and see the full glory of Christ so that our lives will resonate with the fruit of life resulting in goodness, righteousness, and truth.