Together in Christ #5

In Ephesians 1, we have seen Paul's enthusiastic joy over the fact that God has called all believers, Christ-followers, to receive the inheritance God has bestowed upon us, and take up our place in the family business. The chapter division really slows down what is in fact the natural flow into chapter 2;

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 

Paul says everything about your former life, before Christ, was walking down the wrong path, the path of spiritual death. You were following the wrong map, following after the wrong guide, Satan, following your own selfish desires without regard to God or others. You were just like everyone else in the world. In fact, Paul says, we were all in the same boat, part of the same fallen family, showing the same spiritually degenerate genetic traits. Therefore, we were under the wrath of God, fallen, doomed.  Why would Paul do such a thing? Interrupt this powerful pep talk of chapter 1 with this painful past? Because he doesn't want us to take our inheritance for granted. He knew that we are prone to forget how bad things really were, and end up not appreciating what we now have. Don't worry, Paul is not going to leave us here to wallow in this horrible reality, but we need that reminder. We were, in fact, spiritually dead without Christ.