The real me

Ephesians 2:3

among whom we all once live in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

I have heard Matt Chandler call Ephesians 2:1-10 "The gospel in 10 verses." I agree, as I think Paul is continually presenting the gospel in his writings in many ways and places. But this verse I think is one that we would rather not hear. And probably don't, in most churches.

For many, the thought that we were once sinners is something we don't hear a lot. Yet it is all over Paul's gospel. And if we are going to be honest, we struggle with sin still. I like that Paul states we have both desires of the body and the mind. We have urges that were put into our bodies by God, but that still does not mean we have to act on them at every turn. It is easy to justify things we do, but this is not a valid justification. And then there are the urges of the mind. Greed, anger, hate, etc., we used to live according to these too. Everyone. And we start young.

Because of this we were children of wrath. Like the time my son spilled water on my laptop as we were leaving to go somewhere. He knew he did it, yet just walked out the door with the rest of us, saying nothing and not bothering to clean it up. After several hours soaking in water, the laptop was fried. Had it been picked up and moved, or quickly dried up, perhaps a different outcome. I believe I had reason to be upset upon returning home and finding the mess. Children of wrath.

My son did not have $1,000 to replace the laptop. That was a problem. I don't have enough to pay my debt to God either. Thank God for verses 4-10, which I will discus in future posts!