Paul advises the Ephesians that because they are children of God they should imitate Him in everything they did. Imitating Him would be expressed by living life filled with love, following the life of Christ who lived His life loving the things God loved. His example was that His love for us was deep and sacrificial to the point that He freely sacrificed His life for us that we would have life eternal.
Paul again states more ways not to behave as we are children of God. He begins with sexual immorality. Paul writes at length on this topic. 1 Corinthians has several pages dedicated to sexual issues as do several other letters. While Paul writes this so long ago, sexual immorality is still a huge issue today and one to not be taken lightly. He writes; let there be "NO" sexual immorality among you. In addition to that, he adds to not live a life exhibiting impurity, greed, obscene stories, foolish talk, or course jokes. He advises that no such person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and God. Such a life is one that worships the things of the world. If you think of the things listed, they are worldly not Godly, therefore they are of the world not of God. We, like many others, seem to be able to conjure reasons or excuses for such behaviors but Paul instructs us to not be fooled by such people for God's anger will fall on them. Believers were once full of darkness and expected to behave in such ways but now as children of light our behavior should not include those things. So live as children of light and stop including things of darkness in your lives. If we live as children of light we would do what is good and true.
It would be good to not live on automatic but to study the things of God to understand what pleases Him. Take no part in evil and worthless deeds but expose them. Do not even talk about ungodly things or do them in secret. Even the evil things done in secret will be exposed by the light one day.
Paul writes, "This is why it is said,
Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.
So many of us live life never being fully awake. We walk around in kind of a coma. We do what we do without ever giving much thought to it. We live a robotic life style. If we were to ask one another why we do some of the things we do, many answers would be, "I don't know." If we were to live our lives being asleep , we would most likely end up being counted among the dead. If we wake up and give attention to how we live then it would be like having new life, even being risen from the dead. Once awake and alive, Christ will give us light. Remember that evil will be exposed when the light shines on them as in verse 11. Once we have been given this light, it will shine it our own lives and the darkness and sin in our lives will be exposed and no longer hidden. With those areas illuminated, we can then make corrections to our thoughts and behaviors.
Paul goes on to encourage all to be careful how they live and to not live like fools, rather live as wise people. Do not waste opportunities but make the most of them. Don't act thoughtlessly but give thought to what the Lord wants you to do. Being drunk with wine will ruin your life, so stop doing that. Instead of being filled with wine and things that will ruin you, be filled with God's Holy Spirit, sing psalms and hymns, make music to the Lord from your hearts. Live a life being thankful to God in the name of Christ for all you have been given.
Paul ends this chapter by addressing relationships. He speaks to husbands and wives saying they should submit to one another out or reverence for Christ.
Wives, see your husband as your head and of the family as Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the Savior of the church, the body of believers. In the same way, husbands should be the savior of his wife and family. Christ loved the church to the point He sacrificed His life for it and husbands, as the head of their wives and family, should be willing to sacrifice themselves similar to Christ. Husbands make this sacrifice to make his family and wife holy and clean, to make her the best she can be. The example made by Christ was to make His body, the church, holy and clean by the washing of the body by God's word.
Husbands are to love their wives as they would their own body. We know no one hates their own body and has no desire to do things to harm it. In the same way husbands should care for their wives. He should do what is best for her, feed her and clothe her, watch over her and protect her.
When a man leaves his mother and father and joins to his wife, they become one. This is difficult to understand. I like to think of being married to one another with God in the middle of that relationship to be something like cardboard. Cardboard is made of two sheets of paper and one sheet of rippled paper. The two paper sheets sandwich the rippled sheet and become cardboard. The two have become one by God cementing them together. The interesting thing is that they can never be separated without destroying one another and hurting the heart of God in the process.
Paul ends with the fact that a man should love his wife as he loves himself and the wife should respect her husband.