Upper Loft Meditation - Ephesians 5

“Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving… always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - Ephesians 5:4,20

As dearly loved children of God (v.1), how are we to live?

This chapter sets forth four areas that will negatively impact our fellowship with God: (1) “even a hint of sexual immorality”, (2) “any kind of impurity”, (3) “any out of place talk”, and (4) greed. As you prepare your hearts during Lent to worship and celebrate the Lord at Easter, all four of these areas must be addressed in your life. This is serious!

Jesus tells the story of cleaning out a house and the great danger of leaving the house empty;

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left’. When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.” - Matthew 12:43-45

If you clean up your life and remove the evil from the four areas, what will you put in its place? If you do nothing, you risk replacing the evil with even greater evil - sevenfold!

Paul points out clearly that what should replace the evil is a spirit of thanksgiving, activities of thanksgiving, and prayers of thanksgiving.

It is said that one failure, accident, mistake is remembered with the equivalency of fifty blessings, victories, or joyous events. Do you dwell on the dark clouds?