“You...who were dead in sin...He made alive...” (Eph. 2:1)

Paul was writing to the believers at Ephesus here and I should point out that a person can be an active and faithful church member yet still not be a genuine follower of Jesus. Sometimes we make the mistake of reading scripture and just assuming many of the statements and promises are directed to anyone sitting on the church pew.

My purpose for opening with that verse today is because Paul is describing the condition of a person prior to their conversion and becoming an active follower of Christ. – “you who were dead”. From God’s perspective, prior to our repenting and turning to Him with all our hearts, He saw us as ‘dead’. It goes without saying that He’s talking about our ‘spiritual’ condition. If you have read here the past few days, we’ve been looking at how we were created, by God’s design...to be a spirit being, that possessed a soul and lived in a physical body. (1 Thess. 5:23)

Can we just cut to the chase and put this truth out here: Apart from God, we have no life. Period. Jesus pointed this out repeatedly to anyone who had ears to hear: “I have come that you might have life, and it more abundantly.” (John 10:10). “You are not willing to come to Me that you might have life.” (John 5:39) “I am the Way and Truth and Life...” (John 14:6)

So Paul confirms this when he describes our condition prior to coming to Jesus by stating: - We. Were. Dead. He even describes what we looked like as we were under the influence or control of the ‘prince of the air’, Satan. (1 John 5:19; Acts 26:18) We read how we ‘once walked according to the course of this world...as we once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind...and were by nature children of wrath...” (Eph. 2:2-3; John 3:36). Did you notice how he refers to this condition as ‘past tense’, strongly implying a follower of Jesus no longer lives that way? Galatians 5:24 will offer more insight to why that is.

Yes...we breathed and walked and reasoned and lived our lives as we experienced, to varying degrees, all that this life/world had to offer; and yet...we were ‘dead’. In the parable of the prodigal son, how did the father view his son when he was apart from him living in sin? (hint- Luke 15:24)

That might explain why multitudes of people have gone through this life...sensing an awareness that ‘something was missing’. Perhaps you have heard it referred to an ‘empty or vacant hole in the heart’ that we sought to fill through various means and worldly pursuits... only to come up empty and still sensed that void. Oh, sure...we could think... like we filled it up for short periods of time...and yet...deep down, we knew something was still missing.

Friends...there are many sincere people sitting on church pews today that still sense this very same thing...convinced that ‘God’ was the missing piece in their lives. And they were correct...and yet...failed to ‘continue on in the faith’. (Col. 1:23) So just like many of us did in the world...where we sought to ‘fill that void’ with earthly pursuits...now we just do that with ‘religious activity’. Do you think that is what happened to all those folks we read about in Matt. 7:22? If this describes you, having a ‘form of godliness’ (2 Tim. 3:5) yet feeling powerless and near lifeless, hold on and hang with me here. The Word still knows how to ‘quicken’ us and God is still in the business of raising up dry bones from the ashes.(ezek. 37) I know this for sure...because that is what He did in me. :- )