October 19, 2024

Passage Read: Ephesians 5-6
Meditation Verses: 5:27-30

Thought

Jesus loves the Church so much that He is always working at making her as beautiful to Himself as possible! He began with the sacrifice that paid for her sin, cleansing her from the stain of former sin and gifting her everything she needed for life and godliness. But He also continues in teaching and training her so that she becomes all-glorious on the day He receives her to Himself at the end of this age. He is sending teachers and His Spirit to work in her and through her what is pleasing to Himself, so that she would be the delight of His heart. So husbands are to love their wives in the same way, to make her as much a delight to himself as he can, and it takes her submission and trust in him and in his directives to accomplish that. If she will not listen to and learn from him what he finds delightful, he will have a hard time finding delight in her. If he cannot lead and guide and instruct her, how can she grow as a delight to him?

Application

If I am continuously going my own way, only somewhat concerned for what Christ desires for me, how can He have unreserved delight in me? If I will not submit to Christ and His directives for me, then I am demanding that He accept and delight in what I am now, not in what He wants to make me, so I miss out on the good things He has for me and in the delight He wants to have in me, and I prove myself to be the rebel I was supposed to be redeemed from being. Jesus' love and work on my behalf was not completed in the cross, but only begun. I was forgiven and made new, if indeed I believe it, so that I would now walk in newness of life. Only because of the cross could He begin to make me what He always wanted me to be! He redeemed me not just to make me holy and blameless in His eyes, but to conform me to the likeness He purified me to be, so that I would become in reality that which He saw me to be at the beginning. If I will not cooperate with His commands and instructions now and become that which He has always desired me to be, then can I really hope to find in Him a delighted Lord at the end? I don't think so. I may find I never really belonged to Him at all. Like a wife who continually goes her own way, trusting in the faithfulness of her husband to his wedding vow so as never to divorce her, but caring little for what he wants of her or for her to be, she cannot understand why her husband finds little or no delight in her, perhaps even one day divorcing her, because she never truly surrendered herself to him, but remained her own person, a rebel to his leadership and his heart. "Away from Me, I never knew you."