- God loves us so much, and He gave (and gives) of Himself for us. He wants us to follow His example. (Ephesians 5:1-2)
- God wants us to be pure and holy. This takes discipline and self-control. (Ephesians 5:3)
- Our words should be gracious, uplifting and grateful. (Ephesians 5:4)
- We all make mistakes, but a person who has accepted Christ has accepted Him as Lord and wants to be like Him. (Ephesians 5:5)
- Don't bow to peer pressure. (Ephesians 5:6-7)
- Live as children of light--full of goodness, righteousness and truth. Find out what pleases the Lord, and then do it. (Ephesians 5:8-10)
- Darkness cannot overpower light, but light can overpower darkness. (Ephesians 5:13)
- Make conscious decisions about how you live based on God's will. (Ephesians 5:17)
- Don't get drunk, because you will lose your self-control. (Ephesians 5:18)
- Let your joy come from the Spirit rather than from drink. (Ephesians 5:19)
- Always be filled with gratitude to God. (Ephesians 5:20)
- The way we treat each other should reflect our reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)
- God has roles for husbands and wives, but neither is expected to submit to abuse of any kind from the other. If both do their parts, and follow Christ's example, what a team they would be! (Ephesians 5:22-33)
Please share your thoughts on Ephesians 5 in the comment section.
Ephesians 5 :8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light
If we are children of light, we must hate the darkness and all that is evil; immorality, idolatry,greed etc.
I'm not married so Ephesians 5:21-25 is something that I can't relate to at present time but I have definitely seen great examples of godly marriages where a woman submits to her husband and the husband in return gives her respect and love!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Rowena.
When I started to read Ephesians 5 the title block in one of my bibles reads "wake up from your sleep" and I think that speaks to me .. sometimes our expectations or dreams are higher and we need to face the music down at lower levels and remember that Christ wants good for us, he wants us to follow Him in love and goodness
Absolutely Karen! The level of our expectations is always an issue. I think sometimes we expect too much from people (after all they are only human), and when they don't meet our expectations we are disappointed. On the other hand, expecting nothing (or very little) from them is probably no good either, because then they will never strive for anything better, and we will have stopped trying to improve as well. I think the key is to keep having reasonable expectations (after we figure out what is reasonable!), but not to be too disappointed if they aren't met. Remember to focus on the positive! Sometimes people won't try to meet our expectations, and sometimes they will try and not succeed. In either case we must move forward. Sometimes people may not even know what our expectations are if we haven't communicated them adequately. Sometimes we just think that a person should act a certain way, or do a certain thing, but they don't know that we want them to do that, and therefore don't realize that they are letting us down. Trying to see the situation from their perspective is always helpful.