Friday, February 20, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Ephesians 5
Key Verse
Ephesians 5:17 — “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”
Devotional Thought
Paul begins Ephesians 5 with a tender command: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” The word he uses for “followers” is the same one that gives us “mimics.” Children learn by imitation long before they learn by instruction. A boy ties his shoes the way his father ties his, not because anyone sat him down and explained the mechanics, but because he watched. Paul is saying that the Christian life works the same way. We are not merely told what to do; we are invited to copy the character of the One who has adopted us. And the pattern He gives us is love — not the sentimental kind, but the kind that “hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” The cross is the family resemblance.
From there Paul draws a line between the old life and the new. He names the darkness plainly — fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, filthy talk, foolish jesting — and he does not soften it. But notice his reasoning. He does not say, “These things are forbidden, so avoid them.” He says, “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” The command grows out of an identity. You do not become light by avoiding dark things; you avoid dark things because you have already been made light. This is the difference between moralism and the gospel. Moralism says, “Clean yourself up so you can belong.” The gospel says, “You belong now; live like it.”
Verse 16 is worth sitting with in the dead of February: “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Winter is a season that tempts us to hibernate spiritually — to let the days blur together, to postpone what matters until the weather turns. Paul says no. Buy back the time. The Greek word behind “redeeming” is marketplace language, the word for purchasing something out of the hands of another. Every hour is a coin in your hand. Spend it on what lasts. And here is the practical shape of that wisdom: not drunkenness but the Spirit’s fullness, not coarse talk but psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, not self-assertion but mutual submission “in the fear of God.”
Then Paul does something remarkable. He takes the most ordinary human relationship — marriage — and makes it a window into the gospel. Husbands, love your wives “even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Wives, submit “as unto the Lord.” And then he lifts the veil: “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Every faithful marriage is a small, daily sermon. The husband who lays down his preferences for his wife’s good is preaching Christ’s sacrifice without saying a word. The wife who entrusts herself to a husband’s leadership, as unto the Lord, is preaching the church’s glad dependence on her Savior. None of us does this perfectly. But the point is not perfection; it is direction. We are walking as children of light, and every step is meant to look a little more like the Father.
Reflection
- Where in your daily habits — your speech, your entertainment, your use of time — are you still walking as darkness rather than as light, and what would it look like this week to “redeem the time” in that specific area?
- If someone watched how you love your spouse, your family, or your closest neighbor, what would they conclude about how Christ loves the church?
Prayer
Father, we were once darkness, but You have made us light in the Lord. Teach us to walk as Your dear children, imitating the love that took Jesus to the cross as a sweet-smelling sacrifice. Awake what is sleeping in us. Redeem our time, for the days are evil, and fill us with Your Spirit instead of the empty excesses of this world. Make our homes and our marriages small pictures of Christ and His church, that those who watch us might see Him. We ask it in the name of Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen.