Do you consider yourself blessed?
We are all different but are united by our Baptism and our faith in God.
The reality that we are now a part of something bigger and guides is in the way that we should live.
Eph. 4:1-6
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
The letter to the Ephesians can be split into two distinct halves. First, in chapters 1-3, Paul excitedly shares with the Ephesian church about the heavenly reality that Jews and Gentiles are now all united in Christ. Secondly, in chapters 4-6, Paul really gets into the application of this heavenly reality; now that Jews and Gentiles are united in Christ, how then ought we to live?
We see this turn toward application in the first sentence of chapter 4: “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” This one sentence could be a summary for the following three chapters! Now that we have been brought into God’s family, now that we have been brought from death to live, now that we have been united in Jesus… we should live a life worthy of this new reality.
It’s not the other way around – we can’t do anything to earn this! Jesus has brought us into his family through no merit of our own (Eph 1:4-5). It is purely by the gift of grace that we are saved (Eph 2:4-5). And so, now that we are part of this new reality, we need to strive to reflect this new reality in the way that we live; to live worthy lives in response to the lavish grace that we have been shown by our loving Father. These are lives that should be characterised by humility, gentleness, patience, and maintaining unity through the bond of peace we have through the Spirit.
Reference: https://livingchurch.org.au/live-a-life-worthy-of-the-calling-we-have-received/
Within the New Testament there are two clear instructions to parents and this word features prominently in both of them. It is the word provoke. Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” while Colossians 3:21 echoes “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” Risking the wrath of expositors everywhere, I created a mash-up of the two that reads like this: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Lest they become discouraged. A discouraged child is one who has lost heart. He is so beaten down that he has lost hope, he has lost motivation, he doesn’t care anymore. One Bible translates it, “lest he get discouraged and quit trying.” The idea here is that you can so beat down your children that they stop trying to please you. Maybe your demands are arbitrary or unfair, maybe you never praise your children and take joy in them, maybe you live hypocritically before them with higher expectations for them than for yourself. Whatever the case, they eventually stop caring and stop trying. Douglas Moo says, “Paul does not want to see the children of Christian families disciplined to such an extent that they ‘lose heart’ and simply give up trying to please their parents.”
Putting it all together, God exhorts parents in this way: Parents, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged. On the heels of that exhortation he offers a solution: “But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Do not beat down, but raise up. Do not provoke with impatience and injustice, but instead shepherd with nurture and tenderness, and do this through discipline and instruction.
These two words are key: discipline and instruction. Between them they offer words of training and correction, words of admonition and rebuke, words that express both the positive and the negative sides of leadership. You need to correct your children, sometimes with a look, sometimes with a word, sometimes with a timeout, and sometimes with a spank. That is the negative side of parenting. But positively, you also need to teach them, explaining to them what is right, demonstrating how they are to live. This little pair of words covers both the positive and the negative sides of learning and growing, helping our children go from folly to wisdom, from childishness to maturity, from self-centeredness to loving others, and, we trust, from sin to salvation.
Reference: https://www.challies.com/articles/fathers-and-mothers-do-not-provoke-your-children/