When a child first heads out the door on their own, a parent will sometimes say, “Remember who you are.” It is less about the family name than the family itself: remember whose you are, and let it shape how you act. That is exactly the turn Paul makes in Ephesians. For three chapters he tells believers who they now are in Christ, chosen, redeemed, forgiven, brought near, and then he says, “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (). Identity comes first. Then conduct is meant to match it.
The Road That Leads Nowhere
Paul then charges his readers to “walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (), and he traces where that road goes. It begins in the mind, with thinking that feels busy but is aimless. From there it moves to “the understanding darkened,” to being “alienated from the life of God,” and finally to hearts grown “past feeling” that give themselves over to sin and want only more of it (). It is a sobering progression, because it rarely happens all at once. A conscience is bothered, then quieted, then ignored, until what once troubled us barely registers. Paul’s warning is simple: you came out of that; do not walk back into it.
You Did Not Learn Christ That Way
“But ye have not so learned Christ” (). Notice the wording. Paul does not say they learned about Christ; he says they learned Christ himself. It is possible to know a great deal of information, the places, the names, the memorized verses, and still not have let any of it shape a single decision. To learn Christ is to sit at his feet and let his teaching govern the way we live: what love looks like, what purity looks like, how to handle anger and pride and money. That kind of learning takes humility, a willingness to let Jesus tell us we are wrong about a habit we have long called “just who I am.”
Put Off, Be Renewed, Put On
Paul frames the change with the picture of clothing. We are to “put off… the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” (). Sin lies; its desires keep promising more than they can ever deliver, and the old life only decays. So we lay it aside. Then comes the inward work: “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (), the same renewal Paul urges on the Romans, “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (). And finally we “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (). This is not merely subtracting bad habits and checking boxes. God is making something new in us, restoring his own likeness day by day.
Paul leaves us with an honest question worth carrying into the week: what from my old life am I still putting back on? Which worn-out habit, attitude, or way of speaking keeps finding its way back into the wardrobe, comfortable even though it no longer fits who we are? Christ has called us to something better, to put off the old, let him renew our minds, and put on the new self, one day at a time. That is what it means to develop the lifestyle of Jesus.