17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Long, long ago, in a time before cell phones, even before the widespread use of cordless phones, I served a little parish in Utah. The parsonage was across the street from the church, which meant that the boundaries between church and home were somewhat blurred. On the wall of that parsonage, in the kitchen was a telephone, affixed to the wall. It was the only phone on the main level of the house. There was a guest room just down the hall and we installed a very long cord so I could duck there for a moment of privacy if someone called and I needed that isolation. But the long cord also meant I could wander around much of the kitchen and living room while on the phone.
One day, while I was talking to someone on that phone, my wife caught my eye and motioned for me to turn around and look behind me. There was my three-year old son, holding his toy phone to the side of his face, marching around the house in a pretty good imitation of his father.
Paul enjoins us to the imitation of God, as beloved children imitate their loving fathers. But as we all know, children can also imitate bad fathers. In chapter 1 of Ephesians, Paul said that God had adopted us, given us a different inheritance, a different name and life to life. That means saying no to the other inheritance. By birth we were enslaved into a relationship with the ruler of this world and the inheritance of that enslavement is misery and death. But Christ has made us alive once more (Eph. 2:6). Now we are the children of God and have a new inheritance. Read through this passage again, slowly. Notice the descriptions which compare and contrast these two inheritances, these two lives one which truly lives and the other which is a death. The Spirit of God empowers you to live your new inheritance today.