A New Devotion - Choosing the New

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

Ephesians 4:17-32

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Choosing the New

Tomorrow the United States will swear in a new President and Vice President. And regardless of our personal political opinions, this offers us the opportunity to approach the immediate future with a new attitude. Of course, I recognize the problems and challenges will be the same. I mean, we’ll still be struggling through the COVID pandemic and the many ways this has impacted our lives. And we’ll still be reeling from the capitol riots and those corrosive ideas that led men and women to attack one of iconic symbols of our heritage and democracy. And we’ll still be trying to figure out how we might move beyond the anger and hatred that seems to have permeated our society. All these will be issues tomorrow just like they are today. But with a new administration, we can choose to approach them with a new attitude.

And I’ll tell you, that’s exactly what Paul challenged the Ephesians to do in the passage we just read. You see, he challenged them and us to leave behind the baggage we carried from the past and to turn away from ignorance and arrogance and to put away the lies. This is the past we can leave behind. And instead of looking backward, we can intentionally claim the truth. And we can work honestly so that we can give generously. And instead to carrying the bitterness and divisiveness that’s come to shape our society, we can become kind and compassionate and forgiving. You see, as we move into our future, we can decide that we’re not going to live with what is old and decayed. Instead, as Christians, we going to choose the new.