Daily Bible Reading 10th November 2024 // Ephesians 4:1-3
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Furthermore, in the whole reality of our sonship in Christ - our being made sons and daughters of God (children of the heavenly King indeed!) and kings and priests unto our God, it is the royal, the regal privilege and dignity bestowed upon us that lifts us and fills us with an awe, almost that strips from us any attitude of pettiness and niggardliness of spirit. If we are 'royal' in the spiritual sense we are lifted out of the reach of poverty, of small mindedness and envy and the bitter, shrunken attitudes that so corrode the human heart - the pride and vainglory, the discontent, the vinegary spirit that makes us often so unattractive to others. It is to a high dignity that we are called, and we must walk worthy of that calling, and be what God has made us in Christ. We have often illustrated this by the reference to Boaz, in the Book of Ruth, that warm, generous, unassuming, kindly, gracious man, so 'well-saved', and delivered from what he could so easily have been, with his social background. Lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, patience and forbearance - these are the qualities we see in him. There is a great challenge in this. We are often tempted to say, at this point, 'Ah, you do not know how weak I am, how frail, how tempted. You do not know the twists in my nature, or you would not speak like that'. But what does it matter what we are by nature? It was because of what we are by nature that Christ did for us what He did. He gives us the victory just there, where we need it most, and commands us no longer to walk according to what we are by nature, but according to what He has made us by His grace. 'Lift up your eyes', He says, 'and think what Spirit dwells within you'. Remember the words of the Scottish paraphrase: 'High is the rank we now possess' – and let this take a hold of you, grip you and fill your whole horizon. This is the way to walk worthily, for when we are here, we will be thinking straight concerning ourselves, and living the 'crucified life' as second nature. Our life will be well-ordered, and we will be 'well-saved'. Blessed be His Name!