Read Ephesians 4:17-32
Get a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle making two columns (reference model from paper devotional):
Read through the passage slowly, listing characteristics that pop out to you in columns labeled “my new life” and “my former self”.
Prayerfully consider both lists.
- Are there things you need to confess to the Lord, or to someone else, to lament, or ask the Lord to change?
- Are you telling the truth, first about your own story? Sit in the good news that Jesus has given you a new self, is renewing your mind, transforming you to resemble the righteousness and purity of Jesus.
- Second, are you encouraging “your people” by speaking the truth of Jesus into their lives?
Ponder and pray about verse 32.
- Do you speak and spend your time out of a posture of kindness, compassion and forgiveness (for yourself and others) because of your new life in Jesus?
Verse 25 in The Message paraphrase reads” What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.”
1 Peter 2:9-10 gives us words of hope and truth:
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy”
(Cathy Parker, North by Northwest home group)