Thursday, February 2—Ephesians 4:17-24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
- praise God that He has enfolded us into spiritual Israel, the true seed of Abraham, heirs of the covenant promises
- praise God for His sanctifying workmanship of grace in your life, conforming you to the image of His Son
- pray the Spirit would convict you where you find yourself walking according to the world from which you have been taken, not following Christ but instead the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life
- pray that you would be renewed in the attitude of your mind, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, following His lordship rather than the wisdom and ways of the world
- pray that God would grow us in true righteousness, knowledge and holiness
- pray that God would work in us a holy discontent and a profound desire to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus
