What do you want to become? When you
close your eyes and picture yourself in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, what will
you have become? What do you hope for, pray for, and plan for?

I once wanted to become a famous
architect. I designed a three-storey dream house. I built a superb 3D model of
it. It had an inbuilt swimming pool. You could jump into the pool from the top-level
bedrooms. The pool had windows in the side so you could look into the water from
the middle-level dining room and watch people swimming while you ate. It was magnificent.
It was so magnificent that one of my school teachers must have taken it home
after they marked it, because I couldn’t find it anywhere in the classroom at
the end of term. Either that, or they threw it out because they didn’t think it
was as magnificent as I did. If I’m honest, the second option is more likely.
In any case, my dreams were dashed. The cardboard model never became a reality,
and neither did my plan to be a famous architect. But that’s OK; I was still a
kid then, so I had plenty of other dreams to work towards.

What
do you want to become? Our dreams drive our daily actions, don’t they? If you
know what you want to become and have some idea about how you might get there,
you’re motivated to work towards it, day by day. It’s also highly motivating
when you know what you don’t want to become. You might know people who
have made bad choices in life, or who have attitudes or habits or lifestyles
that turn you off completely. If you look at their lives and have some idea how
and why they ended up where they ended up, it can motivate you to avoid their
mistakes and to live differently, day by day.

In this part of Paul’s letter to the
Ephesians, he’s talking about what believers should and shouldn’t “become”. In the earlier
parts of his letter, Paul has tended to focus more on what God has already
made us. God has adopted us as
his children, forgiven us,
made us holy,
and lifted us from
sin and death and judgment to life and salvation.
We are secure
in Christ, and have a wonderful,
glorious hope to look forward to. That’s what God has done for us. That’s
who we are. But as Ephesians goes
on, Paul concentrates more and more on what we should become. He’s talking
about future growth, and change, and action on our part. We will see that as he
talks about what we should become, there’s a positive aspect and a negative
aspect. At the start of chapter 5, Paul says we should
“become imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1). That’s the positive aspect—and
it is incredibly positive! Now, in verses 5–7, Paul is focusing on the negative
aspect:

You must understand this: everyone who is sexually immoral, or impure,