“Livin’ Large is experiencing the new life we have in Christ. It is living the Christian life in the power of the Holy Spirit and it is practicing (Ephesians 4-6) our position (Ephesians 1-3).”
Ephesians 4:17-19
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
No longer live as the Gentiles do—this is the command of this passage. Livin’ Large means we live differently. God saved us from not only the consequences of sin, eternal death, but also from the symptoms of sin, the destructive lifestyle of the world. In this passage the Apostle Paul describes our former life. He describes the values, desires and spiritual affects of being dead in sin. This is what we have been saved from. Logically and proactively, we should not longer live this way! The call of Christ is an exhortation to repentance. It means, as Jesus said, that we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. Especially this is highlighted in our thinking. The worldly-pagan life is a life devoid of ultimate and absolute truth. God has been reasoned out of the equation and the result is a futile-darkened and hardened heart. As new people in Christ, saved by the gospel of grace, why would we continue to think and live like people who deny God? Livin’ Large is living differently. It is living in the way of Christ. It is practicing what we profess. Living Large is living differently because the gospel has changed our lives!
Take a moment to do some personal inventory. Invite the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Ask God if there are any patterns of thinking or behaving that is more like the world than it is like the Kingdom of Christ. If God convicts you, ask His forgiveness, repent and surrender your life to the control of Christ. Livin’ Large is living differently; it’s living as a follower of Christ.