Followed

Eph. 2:2 (NIV)
in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

For those of us who are believers, who have been made alive, we must often be reminded that we too used to follow the ways of this world. There are two inherent dangers in forgetting our old path. First we will soon take for personal accomplishment the holiness that has come about as the result of Christ's personal sacrifice. Sometimes, people who have been a long time forget that the sanctified life that they now live has not always been so. Hence the second danger is that it becomes very easy to for us to look down our noses with disbelief at sinners who are still struggling to become like Christ. The Apostle Paul was probably one of the holiest of all the believers, yet he consistently reminded his readers, and for that matter himself that he was the chief of all sinners, and that the things that he wanted to do, he failed to do, and the things that he tried not to do, he found himself doing. Paul never forgot that he was simply a sinner, saved by grace.