"As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance" (I Peter 1:14).

A graphic figure of speech often used in the Bible is the attribution of character traits to parental inheritance.

In our text, those who honor God's laws are called "obedient children"--a term conveying the same sort of message as "children of light, and the children of the day" (I Thessa-lonians 5:5), as well as "children of the kingdom" (Matthew 13:38). In contrast, note Ephesians 5:6: "Because of these things |that is, the sinful practices listed in Ephesians 5:3-5| cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." A definitive passage is I John 3:10: "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother."

Those who are "by nature the children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3) can, of course, become children of God by the new birth. This becomes the greatest of all incentives toward a godly life. The Biblical terms "regeneration" and "born again" are widely misused today, but they represent wonderful, life-changing realities: "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light" (5:8).

Therefore, as in our text, we must no longer "fashion" ourselves according to our former lusts, but according to our new life. "Be not conformed |same Greek word as fashioned| to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). No longer in darkness and ignorance, we now "have light" as the "children of light" (John 12:36), and the "mind of Christ" (I Corinthians 2:16) as children of wisdom (Matthew 11:19). We now have the very highest of all callings, as children of God, and we must "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called" (Ephesians 4:1). HMM