Ephesians 2:2

You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God (Ephesians 2:2 NLT). 

This paints such a stark contrast between believers and non-believers and forces us to face a reality that so many Christians tend to soft pedal.  The truth of the matter is that we are either in Christ, serving God, and living in righteousness; or we are not in Christ, serving the devil, and living in sin.  Talk about narrow-minded, exclusive, holier-than-thou, intolerant, and Bible-thumping!  Yet, that is what God declares in His Word to be the true state of reality.  So, do we shy away from walking in that truth because we don’t want those labels, or do we walk in that truth because of the labels we do want, like – chosen, holy, child of God, righteous, saint, heaven-bound, and beloved, to name just a few?

There is an illustration with which most of us are familiar about the frog in the kettle.  It explains a powerful point that if you throw a frog into boiling water, he’ll jump out.  However, if you put him in warm water and turn on the heat, he will never move, even though the water reaches boiling because it was a gradual increase in the temperature to which he became accustomed and that seemed normal. This is a perfect parable for believers in our society today.  We are boiling in the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, but not jumping out because we have become desensitized to sin. 

It is easy to see the progression of our deterioration through the history of cinema.  In 1939 when the movie, “Gone With the Wind” came out, it was considered scandalous because Clark Gable uttered the unmentionable curse word in his famous line, “Quite frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a d….”  Fast forward to 2014 and we have the record-holding Hollywood blockbuster of the “Wolf on Wall Street,” touting the use of the “F” word 506 times, that’s once every 21-1/2 seconds!  In 1952, in the TV show, Ozzie and Harriett, we were so modest as a society that this Hollywood couple slept in twin beds even though they were married.  Yet, in 2014, just flip through the channels during Prime Time TV and you will be hard-pressed to find any show that is not promoting some type of sex outside of marriage.  From adultery to homosexuality, it has become the acceptable standard of our viewing audience in America today.  And we wonder why so many Christians are having a hard time on the topic of gay marriage.  Wake up people, the water is boiling and we need to jump out of the kettle or boil to death.

I am reminded today that my path is one of holiness and I need to repent of the compromise I have allowed in my life and ask God to replace my boiled heart of stone with one of flesh that follows hard after Him and His righteousness regardless of what I am labeled by the world.

Check out Gennarino's post on this verse at:  Ephesians 2:2.