In today’s Collect, we ask the Lord to grant us grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow the one true God.

The temptations that bind us to this godless world—and threaten to destroy us with it—are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Those who surrender to them cannot fulfil the greatest commandment: to love God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves.

In today’s Epistle, Saint Paul speaks of our vocation. God has called us out of darkness and given us new life and the hope of eternity in His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. This is the grace bestowed upon us through faith and baptism, just as Our Lord Himself said before His Ascension: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

The Apostle therefore urges us to walk worthy of this vocation— “with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

When the Lord appeared to Paul and called him to be His apostle, He sent a disciple named Ananias to baptize him. In speaking to Ananias, the Lord said something remarkable about Paul’s calling and the path that lay before him: “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” These words were certainly fulfilled: Paul was called not only to proclaim Christ, but also to suffer greatly for His sake.

When God promised Abraham that He would establish an everlasting covenant with him and his descendants, He instituted circumcision as the sign of that covenant. The order is clear: first comes the promise, and then circumcision as the sign and seal of the promise and the covenant.

In the world in which we live, it often seems that whenever there is something beautiful—a flower in bloom, for example—someone is bound to come along and trample it underfoot. This can seem almost like an inevitable feature of human nature: when we see something beautiful, and even recognize its beauty, we may nevertheless feel an almost irresistible urge to spoil or destroy it.

And yet this is not an inherent feature of human nature. It belongs to our fallen and sinful nature. Just as leprosy, or any other disease, is not a natural part of the human organism, neither are sin and vice part of our true nature.