A constant refrain in these chapters is the need to walk and live as the children of God.
“I . . . urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us” (4:1-3).
“You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts” (4:17).
“Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God” (5:1,2).
“Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most the time, because the days are evil” (5:16).
And additional instructions to husbands and wives, children, and servants—about how they are to love and to conduct themselves. Our motive for living as we should is that motive Paul mentions in 5:1,2, i.e., because Jesus has loved us with so great a love, that he gave himself for us, so we ought to love him and live in a way that is pleasing to him. “Lord, help us, today, to live in this way.”
A charge to keep I have,
a God to glorify . . .
Arm me with watchful care
as in Thy sight to live,
and now Thy servant, Lord, prepare
a strict account to give!
Help me to watch and pray,
and still on Thee rely,
O let me not my trust betray,
but press to realms on high. -- Charles Wesley (1762)
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