Scripture

Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Consider

Last week’s devotional suggested giving up a destructive attitude or habit as a Lenten discipline. Today’s look at the same Ephesians passage takes our Lenten journey one step further—with each negative behavior we abandon, we make room for positive growth.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do relationship habits. When we give up a selfish or hurtful way of responding to others, we must replace that habit with a new behavior, hopefully something good and constructive. If we don’t, the old nasty habit will creep back and retake its familiar place in us, perhaps with even more potency than before.

Paul counsels us to replace our negative habits with kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness. These qualities are intimately bound together within God’s law of love. What’s more, they are attributes of God Himself that we receive as we surrender our bitterness, anger, and evil behaviors and ask God to fill in the gap. Surrendering the negative and growing into the positive makes us more like Christ, a process that Saint Athanasius described as “becoming by grace what God is by nature.”

Pray

FATHER, I need your grace to give up my mean and defensive habits and replace them with the goodness you desire in me. Teach me how to be kind instead of critical and patient when I’d rather complain. Help me to forgive the undeserving, as you have forgiven me.

Reflect

Luke 11:24-26; Colossians 3:12-14

Ponder

What negative attitude keeps creeping back when I try to banish it? What is the positive attitude God would rather cultivate in me?