Paul has more to say about the disciples’ walk in Ephesians 5. He begins by telling us we are to “walk in the way of love” (v. 2). Love has a way (1 Corinthians 13:1-8) and despite what popular culture tells us, it has very little to do with our feelings. If you look Paul’s list of what love is (patient, kind, it does not envy, boast, or is proud), these are not emotions we’re called to possess—they have to do with what we think (our attitude) and what we do (our actions). And most of them don’t come natural to us—they tend to be hard work. That’s why you hear people say things like, “I need to work on my patience.”
But we must understand that love has very little to do with our feelings because if we don’t, we’re going to make the mistake of trying to feel our way into living better rather than acting our way into living better. The emotional/feeling aspect of love is a wonderful thing that God created. We just have to recognize it was never meant to drive our lives. It complements our attitudes and actions—it is not a replacement for them. John tells us, “Let us not love in words or speech” (expressive of our emotions), “but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18).
As we walk in the way of love, we are following “God’s example” or even stronger, “imitators of God” (ESV). In the verse before that, Paul has told us, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you,” (4:32). Once again, we see Paul is tying our walk with attitudes and actions toward each other. Through our unity we show ourselves and the watching world what God is like—He is kind, compassionate, and forgiving. Is this what people are seeing in us?
All of this was modeled by Christ when He walked on this earth (v. 2). Christ’s giving Himself for us is termed “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” This is the language of the O.T. sacrificial system where the passages that speak of the “pleasing aroma” the burnt sacrifices were to God (see Exodus 29 and other texts). In the same way, when we give ourselves to our brothers and sisters, it is a “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
The next walk Paul mentions has to do with his instruction for us to “walk as children of light” (v. 8). There was a lot of darkness in Paul’s world (see 4:17-19), and it’s no different in our world today. We can curse the darkness (and there is a time and a place for that), but there’s nothing more important than us walking as light. Putting this together with what we we’ve been told in v. 2, and we could think of it as walking in the light of love.
We need to do this, and the world needs us to do this. It doesn’t need the watered-down version of love that in the name of love wants to ignore darkness or rationalize it away by telling us, “You do you” (i.e., what our heart tells us) in everything. Paul says, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Speech like that is neither true love nor love being truthful!
This is not how we are to think or what we are to do, it’s what we are to be—“walk . . . as light.” Light is more than just about how we think or live, it’s about who we are. And we shouldn’t underestimate what God can do with our light.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 