Today’s Reading: Ephesians 4:17-24

17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

It’s the “because” that gets me.

1. They harden their hearts;

2. And so they are ignorant in understanding and separated from God;

3. And the result of this is that they have live only for physical comfort and sensations.

All because they made a choice to harden their hearts.

20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

I wonder if that choice—to harden your heart—is the main problem, which would mean the opposite choice would be the way forward: to keep an open heart.

Maybe that’s our main task today—keep our hearts open.