The Way of Love
READ
If you've ever spent time around a small kid, you know they're basically tiny mirrors. They pick up your phrases, your mannerisms, even the way you sigh when you're frustrated, usually at the most embarrassing possible moment. Kids don't copy people because they're told to. They copy the people they're closest to, the ones they love and trust. Paul uses that exact instinct to start this next section of Ephesians.
Read Ephesians 5:1–7 and notice who he says we're supposed to imitate, and why.
1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.7 Therefore do not be partners with them.
REFLECT
"Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children." Notice how Paul frames this. He doesn't say "follow God's example so that you'll become loved." He says to follow it as people who already are. Imitation, here, flows from belonging, the same way a kid picks up their parent's habits not out of obligation, but simply because they've spent so much time together.
And what exactly are we copying? "Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us." That's the pattern. Not a list of religious behaviors, but a particular kind of love, the kind that gives itself away, that puts someone else's good ahead of its own comfort. Christ's love, Paul says, is the model. Love that costs something.
Then Paul gets more specific about what the opposite looks like: sexual immorality, impurity, greed, crude or careless talk. It's a pretty uncomfortable list, and it's easy to read it as a set of rules about what not to do. But look at what ties those things together. Every one of them, at its core, is about taking. Using someone else's body, someone else's trust, someone else's resources, or someone else's dignity for what you want in the moment. Self-centered love, in other words, which isn't really love at all. It just borrows the name.
That's the contrast Paul is drawing, and it's worth noticing it's not really a contrast between "good people" and "bad people." It's a contrast between two directions love can point. One direction gives. The other grabs. And over time, whichever direction you keep walking in becomes your default way of moving through the world, almost without you noticing.
Here's what makes this more than a behavior checklist: what you love shapes who you become. If you keep feeding a love for being comfortable, being admired, or getting what you want, it slowly turns you into someone whose whole life bends toward yourself. If you keep practicing the kind of love Christ showed, the giving kind, the costly kind, you slowly become someone who looks a little more like Him, even in small, ordinary ways.
That's why Paul isn't just saying "avoid these things." He's inviting us to let a different love take over. Think about what happens when you're really, deeply invested in something good, like a person, a purpose, a cause. The things that used to tempt you lose some of their pull, not because you're white-knuckling your way past them, but because you've found something you'd rather be loyal to. Paul's hoping for that same kind of shift here: not just a tighter grip on your behavior, but a bigger, better love that quietly reorders what you want.
So the real question this passage leaves us with isn't "what should I stop doing?" It's "what am I actually loving most right now?" Because whatever the answer is, that's the direction you're slowly being shaped toward.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you just read.
Think about the people or influences you spend the most time around. What habits or attitudes have you picked up from them, without even realizing it?
Where do you see "taking" love showing up in your own life, wanting what you want, even at someone else's expense?
What would it look like this week to practice the kind of love Christ showed, one small, costly, giving act in an ordinary moment?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Father, thank You for loving us first, and for inviting us to follow Your example as Your children. Forgive us for the times we've loved ourselves more than the people around us. Teach us to love the way Christ loved, giving instead of grabbing, even when it costs us something. Reshape what we love most, so that our lives slowly start to look more like Yours. Let love be the thing that defines us. Amen.