Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:15,16
When I was a kid, I remember laying in my bed at night, thinking about good and evil. I had this “comic book” from church that showed good angles fighting evil angles. In my mind the good angles won, not because God was on their side, but they just happened to win.
Don’t ask me how I came to this conclusion, but I thought that good and evil were about the same. They both had the same amount of power. It was only a flip of the coin as to who would win. Just in case you had any questions, this is totally wrong.
We are warned about evil and being very careful about it. And this being careful isn’t just something we do once in a while. No, we’re to be looking and carefully thinking about the enemy and what they might do to us. We have our guard up. We’re on the lookout for evil because they’re looking to take us down.
We’ve got to get this idea out of our heads that evil is just a neutral thing. That evil is just someone who has a different idea than we do. That we can somehow make peace with evil so that it won’t attack us, they won’t hurt us.
Evil isn’t like boxers in a ring where they fight fair. Where they play by the rules. No, evil doesn’t play by the rules. They don’t stay in bounds. They’ll do anything to take us down. When Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear[1], he didn’t care that it wasn’t fair. All he wanted to do was beat his opponent and was willing to do whatever it took to win.
The days aren’t just evil, they are actively evil. This evil isn’t just sitting on the sidelines, it’s out on the field and doing everything it can to disrupt your life. This evil isn’t just thinking about evil, it’s aggressively doing evil to trip you up, to bring you down. This evil isn’t just planning stuff, it’s out there doing evil to you personally, your family, your friends, your life.
And how are we to live with wisdom? How are we to be wise in our life? We are to live each and every day being guided and energized by God’s love for us. Since he has done everything possible to not just demonstrate his love, but to deliver his love, we lovingly want to choose God and his rules for life.
When we drive, we stay on the right side of the road. We don’t cross the yellow line because it’s not just against the law but it’s also very dangerous to us and our passengers. We choose to stay in our lane because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the way roads were made.
This doesn’t restrict our freedom. Just the opposite, it gives us lots of freedom. We can safely drive almost anywhere we want when we stay on our side of the road and obey some basic rules.
And when we choose to live by God’s plan, this gives us all sorts of opportunities to do good. Every opportunity in life becomes a possible act of kindness, care, compassion, and expression of God’s love. We can live for the benefit of others, giving ourselves to their good.
We need to take advantage of each and every opportunity because the times we’re living in are evil. And this evil isn’t going to fight fair. It’s out to get us. To destroy us.
The openings for doing good might be slowly becoming fewer, getting harder to show God’s love in our day-to-day lives. People might not be open to hearing that God loves them so desperately that he was willing to die for them.
But, like light in a dark place, doing good will be noticed. It will attract attention because it’s just so different from everyone and everything people are used to.
Yes, the days are evil. And one reaction is to go and hide in a holy huddle. To put your head down and not to come up. To live your life as alone as possible. To stay in your house while you order food and clothing over the internet, having it delivered to your door. To only visit with family and friends over the phone or on video calls. To reduce you worship of God to internet attendance where you can put it on pause or walk away without anyone noticing.
But since God has shown his love for you personally, how can we fail to share that with he people around us? And it all starts by showing up.
He gave the truly ultimate example of love by personally coming to earth and dying for us. He’s the God of love and personal sacrifice. It would have been a lot easier for him to send someone else, or to just “call it in.”
But that’s not who God is. He’s the God who shows up. He’s the God who never leaves or forsakes[2]. He’s the God who did the outrageously good thing by personally sacrificing himself for us.
That certainly give us hope for these evil days. And an example of how to live.
Noodling Questions
What happened this week to make you think that the days are evil?
Name some openings you had this week to make the most of every opportunity.
What made you want to do it? Or walk away without making the most of it?
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