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. 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. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Ephesians 4: 17-19

Over the weekend we met with a group of friends and it is difficult to talk about the Christian life these days and not comment on the general lostness in our world today. The headlines are full of corruption and darkness, wouldn’t you agree?

In the passage above, Paul begins to draw the contrasting line between how we should live and the larger culture around us.

Look at the following words and phrases – darkened, alienated, hardness of heart, callous, sensuality, greedy, impurity – all of these mark the hearts and minds of those whose lives are pointless, without meaning, because meaning for our lives is found outside ourselves.

Jesus commented on darkness in John’s Gospel in his dialogue with Nicodemus –

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

John 3:19-20

The darkness around us is all too real and this underscores the need for us to avoid being caught up or desensitized to the dark, calloused lives in the culture that is increasingly less friendly to lives lived in the light.