This week’s devotions are based on Week 3 of the Series Ephesians: Becoming Who You Are (CLICK HERE)
Ephesians 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
Death, from a physical standpoint, is a final thing.
When a person is dead, there is…no heartbeat…no breathing…no warmth to their skin.
A dead person can’t do anything. He can’t restart his own heart. He can’t breathe on his own. He can’t move.
Paul applies this term to one who is spiritually dead. While physically alive, spiritually they show all the signs of being dead. It’s a bleak place to be. It’s a status that ends in one reality: Object of God’s wrath.
What is noticeable in the terms Paul uses, is that he uses the past tense, “you WERE dead in your transgressions and sins.” He will get to the current reality, but let’s pause to understand the seriousness of our condition so that we appreciate the amazing nature of God’s grace.
While our status is changed as believers, we must recognize the signs of spiritual death because the spiritual battle is real and the outcome is so important.
So what are the signs of spiritual death? Paul gives three that indicate the heart is loyal to someone or something other than the Lord and his Word of Truth:
- One who is spiritually dead follows the ways of the world.
We live in the world, but are not to be of the world. Yet the temptation is to let the pressures of the culture around us shape our heart and our beliefs. While learning is a blessing, our heart can follow the humanism of the classroom, the philosophical atheism, the materialism of wealth or the woke ideas of the media and others. When Christianity is dispelled as out of touch, narrow-minded, or too religious, it is easy to find a path of less resistance to formulate our beliefs. In fact the world around us allows us to be our own god and master of life. It promotes an identity that is found in career, status, or wealth. All these, perhaps, seem more tangible and real in our own experience and find it tempting to ignore the Lord and follow the world.
2. One who is spiritually dead is influenced by the spirit of unbelief
The “spirit of the air” is a description of Satan. He is the one that promotes deceptions that seem real and the distractions that seem more important than the ways of the Lord. The spirit in those that are disobedient are ones that deny the reality of Christ and the authority of his Word. This is the temptation to minimize Christianity to one faith among many that has no more value than any other world religion. The heart is turned to trust itself more than the Lord. This is the the spirt of the air formulating an empty belief system in our hearts.
3. One who is spiritually dead satisfies the cravings of the sinful nature.
We are good at pleasing ourselves. We naturally crave self-gratification and desire things that are best for me. Perhaps the list that Paul writes in Galatians 5 is summary enough:
Galatians 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
One who makes loyalty to the world and sinful flesh has no other option but to face the wrath of God. Without Christ, we face the justice of God which has to punish sin.
If this is our heart and our life we have no hope…
But…
(Read tomorrow morning for a very important “but”!)
Apply: Today’s devotion is a time for self-reflection and a realization of how our heart can be distracted and deviate from the Lord. It points out how much we need an answer to avoid the wrath of God and turn our hearts to God.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the blunt description of our heart without you. May your Spirit lead us to repentance and turn back to you. AMEN.