Message from Scripture: 11/17/2021

 

Our message from Scripture today is Eph. 5:18-19; “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.

 

In the book, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, Conybeare and Howson list four contrasts between heathen practice and that of the Christian in this passage of Scripture. (1) Christians were not to be full of “spirits” (wine) but of the Holy Spirit. (2) Christians were not to sing “the drinking songs of heathen feasts” but “psalms and hymns.” (3) The music of Christians was not “of the lyre (harp) but the melody of the heart.” (4) The songs of Christians were not “to the praise of Bacchus or Venus, but of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

What Paul wanted these Christians to understand, and us today as well, is that obedience to the gospel demands abandoning a lifestyle of sin for that of righteousness, as defined by the righteous God in His word. The blood of Christ doesn’t sanctify sin, making it acceptable to God, but separates us from it for a better way of life, one that reflects the image of God, in which we were created. Paul wrote, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1-2).

 

No one should want to continue in a lifestyle, or return back to it, that only condemns, when we can be like Christ, live like Christ, and have our hope in Christ. Satan wants to deceive us into thinking anything will do, when in contrast God tells us to live is Christ, for Christ is life (Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:4). We are unique people in a world of sin, which shows others what life can really be like.

 

Today, let’s go out and serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, knowing we have the best life for today, and the only life that offers eternity. Let others take note of what a difference Christ makes. God bless.

 

Robert