For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of light (9) (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), (10) finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.  (11) And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.  (12) For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.  (13) But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.  (14) Therefore He says:  “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”

The letter to the Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul to the church in  Ephesus which existed in that ancient pagan cultural world.  The guiding principles of our verses today addresses real life difficult situations – how Christians should live as people of light. Paul says that the faithful are not in the light but ARE light.

Paul’s argument is that believers have undergone a dramatic change of heart. Salvation has come to them and it has transformed them already – not just improved but TRANSFORMED them from death to life; from darkness to the light.  Jesus was God’s provision for salvation; He is the light of the world.  And this contrast between light and darkness is throughout the Bible; we are to be in this world but not of this world. We are not to be tainted by worldly things – to wear the world lightly.

The caution is believers are not to be so removed from the world as to withdraw and have no impact. In faith we are to behave as we believe. People do notice and hopefully will want what we have. The light exposes what the dark conceals.  In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes of choices between light and dark – death or salvation – where the night is almost gone and the day is at hand.   We are running out of time to choose the light.