Glory to God! Warm Christian greetings to one and all, near and far in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I believe that we all could experience a good amount of God’s love, grace, and mercy during the past week, which we will be able to experience continuously at the moment as well as in the days to come. It is impossible for a Christian to live a spiritually productive life without the continuous guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit in their life. As a member of God’s family, you and I need to live our life in Him who gave us life (Genesis 2:7; Job 33:4), in a similar way, a branch ought to remain in the tree for its own survival (John 15:4). Like a branch remains in the tree, if we remain in the Lord, it doesn’t matter where we live, or what we do for our living. This indicates that, wherever we are, we can make our life spiritually very productive and fruitful. If we are spiritually productive, we will be able to make our life socially beneficial. Thus, we will be able to make our personal, familial, and communal life meaningful and beneficial to all those around us. In order to do so, we may need to take initiatives to prioritize the motives and purposes of our life. In the process of prioritizing the motives/purposes of our life, we may need to include certain things to our used-to-be lifestyle as well as exclude certain things from our used-to-be lifestyle. For instance, some of the healthy things either to maintain or include:

• • As a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, we need to prioritize our life-goals based on God’s purpose of our life (whatever it might be: spiritual or material)
  • As a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, we need to keep on renewing our relationship with our Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer and Life-giving God through meditating on the Word of God (not just reading the Bible), praying and fellowshipping with one another.
  • As a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, we need to make meaningful choices in life, starting with choosing a career or friend. There is  an old saying regarding choosing a friend: A friend in need is a friend indeed. Have you seen the movie titled: Toy Story! There is a song in it (singing in the background) about friendship as the human youngster character named Andy takes the toy character named Woody to the lower floor of his house: You’ve got friend in me … when the road looks rough ahead, And you’re miles and miles from your nice warm bed …).
  • As a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, we are called to be the witness in this world about our relationship with Christ and about what Christ has done in our lives (Isaiah 43:10; 44:8; Luke 24:48; John 15:27; Acts 1:8; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 13:31; 22:15; 26:16)
  • As a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, we need to live a life that would bring glory and honor to God and God alone (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17; 1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 4:11).

Similarly, the unhealthy habits to exclude from our life on a day-to-day basis include:

• • As a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, we need to avoid/exclude anything (either in the form of a word, deed, or practice) that hinders maintaining a right relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It might be easy to include a few more stuff with our already existing habits or day-to-day activities but it is hard to exclude anything from our everyday used-to-be lists. However, in order to live a life that is worthy of God’s calling in our life, we need to include with our existing lifestyle all that would help to improve our day-to-day walk with Jesus and exclude all that causes to disrupt our daily walk with Jesus. As a faithful followers of Jesus Christ, it is each one of our responsibility to maintain a right and righteous relationship with Him, which could be possible through:

• • reading and studying the Word of God,
  • continually meditating upon the Word of God,
  • keeping the righteous laws and decrees and commands of God that are described in the written Word of God,
  • worshipping the living God of the Bible in spirit and truth,
  • living a righteous life based on the Word of God, and so on.

The Lord has blessed us with a very contemplative Scripture passage (Ephesians 4:1-6) for our SftW meditation this week. Through his writings, Apostle Paul invites the faithful followers of Jesus Christ who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ [also known as God’s chosen people] to live a life worthy of the calling they have received (Ephesians 4:1). As God’s chosen people and as we live our life worthy of the calling we have received, we all need to be humble and gentle and patient and need to bear with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2). If you and I, as God’s chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God’s special possession (1 Peter 2:9), are able to be humble ourselves before God and others, and be gentle and tolerant towards the rest of God’s chosen people and live a life worthy of our calling, the Holy Spirit will enable us to be one with God the Father, one with our Lord Savior Jesus Christ and one with the rest of God’s family here on earth, and thus, there will be unity between God and us as well as unity among the believers (Ephesians 4:3). The spiritual unity between God and us as well as among the believers and among the rest of God’s creation is not possible through the righteousness of mankind or with their efforts but it is possible only through the help of the Holy Spirit. In order to have such unity, every faithful follower of Jesus Christ ought to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus and live their lives as Jesus showed and commanded them (Philippians 2:5-11), which means, when people hear what we speak and see what we do, it should remind them of Jesus’ life, ministry, teachings, and His love for them as He loved everyone and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. In a nutshell, as God’s dearly loved children, we ought to replicate the lifestyle of Christ in and through our life and show the world that we are His followers (Ephesians 5:1-2). Elsewhere Apostle Paul wrote:

… As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:12-14)

Let us read the Scripture passage we chose for our meditation (Ephesians 4:1-6) again to analyze and study and meditate on it …

• • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to live a life worthy of the calling they have received (4:1)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to be completely humble (4:2a)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to be completely gentle (4:2b)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to be patient with one another in love (4:2c)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to be tolerating with one another in love (4:2d)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (4:3)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus Christ needs to accept the biblical fact that there is only …
    • one body (4:4a)
    • one Spirit (4:4b)
    • one hope (4:4c)
    • one Lord (4:5a)
    • one faith (4:5b)
    • one baptism (4:5c)
    • one God (4:6a)
    • one Father of all (4:6b)
  • Every faithful follower of Jesus needs to accept the biblical fact that ‘the One God’ who is in existence is the One who is over all and through all and in all (4:6c)

The grace of God is given to all believers across the world to grow into spiritual maturity and fulfill God’s purpose in this world in and through their life and ministry. Therefore, as the dearly loved children of God …

• • We need to be loyal to the triune God – God the Father; God the Son; and God the Holy Spirit
  • We need to live our life by keeping the righteous laws and decrees and commands the Lord God has given us
  • We need to live a life worthy of the call we received
  • We need to carry out and fulfill the purpose of God in and through our life

Dear friends in the Lord, although Apostle Paul opposed Jesus Christ and His teachings in the early part of his life (Acts 7:58; 8:1-3; 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:9-11; Galatians 1:13; 1 Timothy 1:13), he became an enthusiastic and passionate follower of Jesus Christ as the result of his encounter with the glorified Christ outside the city of Damascus (Acts 9:1-20; 26:14). With such a momentary encounter with the glorified Christ, Paul changed his perspectives about God, fellow-human beings, the rest of God’s creation, and even his lifestyle itself and tuned the rest of his life around and became fully committed to carrying out the will of God in and through his life.  Paul later wrote: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20). From the time Paul had the vision of the glorified Christ, he upheld the teachings of Jesus Christ as the only source of living a righteous life on earth and he passed on to others with the best of his ability all that he believed (the gospel of Christ) and all that he experienced in life through his ongoing communion with the glorified Christ. Likewise, everyone who decides to follow Jesus Christ ought to change their entire lifestyle and live a life that is worthy of the call they received and consecrate their life to fulfill the purpose of God in and through their life. Therefore, in the light of our meditation, let us rededicate our life for His cause and live our life worthy of the call we received, so that the Lord will bless us immeasurably and do for us more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). May the Lord God Almighty bless us all! Amen!