There are passages in Scripture that refuse to let us drift. Ephesians 4 is one of them. St. Paul speaks with the urgency of someone who knows what is at stake: “You must no longer live as the Gentiles do… darkened in understanding… alienated from the life of God because of their hardness of heart.”
This is not a warning about strangers in a distant land. It is a mirror held up to our own souls. Hardness of heart is subtle. It grows when we stop listening, when we justify what we once resisted, when we let the world’s noise drown out the whisper of God. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we become callous to grace.
But Paul interrupts that drift with a reminder: “That is not how you learned Christ.”
Christ taught us a different way — a way that begins with truth, continues with surrender, and ends in transformation. To put away the old self is not merely to avoid sin; it is to refuse the smallness, the futility, the spiritual numbness that keeps us from God. It is to let the Spirit renew the very atmosphere of our minds.
And Scripture does not let us settle for half-measures. “As He who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct.” Holiness is not a niche calling for the few. It is the identity God desires for every one of His children.
The Canticle of Zechariah reminds us why:
God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness — because holiness is freedom.
Freedom from the enemies that bind us.
Freedom from fear.
Freedom to worship Him with an undivided heart.
Freedom to walk in the light that breaks upon those who dwell in darkness.
This is the life Christ came to give us:
a life made new,
a mind renewed,
a heart softened,
a path illuminated by mercy.
The question is not whether God desires to make us holy. The question is whether we will allow Him.
Smitten With Goodness 