Ephesians 2:12
“remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
The end of this verse describes the dire state we were in. “having no hope and without God in the world.” I wasn’t aware of that. I didn’t understand “the faith” enough to realize this. I accepted Christ in my teens, so it may be that I just entered the age of accountability. Whatever the case, this description applied to me; it applied to all of us at one time. We don’t quite see it that way. It has to be viewed spiritually. For example, when God told our first parents that they would die at eating the fruit, they did die spiritually. This meant that they were separated from God. Much of life was the same; they were still gardeners, they were still in relationship with each other, they were stewards of creation, they were to be parents and so on. What did change is that they were separated from God. No more walking with Him in the cool of the day. God made some type of reconciliation with them, in that he sacrificed an animal(s) to make clothes out of leather. What else makes the Christless circumstance bad. Just as we don’t know we’re separated from God, so we don’t see the danger in the spiritual realm. Just as there are angels, there are demons. These seek to tempt and destroy us. They have some type of limitation. However, the choices we make give them permission to further tamper with us. Any unbiblical behavior opens us up to them. It’s almost as if we begin in the middle of dark and light. As we sin, the light fades a bit and we go deeper into the devil’s realm. We become more susceptible to them. Just as vines can grow around something and become an intertwined mess, so unbiblical habits can enmesh within our minds and spirit. Almost like we become captive to them. Another passage says that we become slaves to sin, John 8:34. The vines of entanglements wrap us up like a mummy. We aren’t free. The irony is we think we are free to do exactly what we want. We chose this ensnaring behavior. This is part of what it means to have “no hope and without God in the world”. God does attempt to rescue us and unwrap these chains. We have to say yes. These warnings don’t come in obvious signs from Him (sometimes yes). More so, just a caution, “this is not a good idea”. A life time of ignoring these and we are a boat adrift far from Him. It takes one prayer and He’ll be there, but we become so enslaved and dull of hearing that the chances become more slim that we’ll say yes to Him. However, if you’re reading this and want to respond to Him, pray. Ask for His forgiveness and tell Him you’ll comply and help is yours. He will unravel all this mess. It will take some time, but if you’re agreeable, He certainly is. He will stand as defense against evil. The powers of darkness begin to lose their power. Those in Christ need to avoid entanglements in sin, Hebrews 12:1. Lord, thank You for the hope you’ve given us and the daily freedom that You offer. Help us to yeild to You and avoid the enslavement of sin.