SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 01-25-03
My
Worship Time Focus: Preaching of the good news
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Hebrews 4:2
1. Message of the verse: “For indeed the gospel was preached to us as
well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being
mixed with faith in those who heard it.”
(NKJV) “For this Good News—that
God has prepared a place of rest—has been announced to us jus as it was to
them. Bit it did them no good because
they didn’t believe what God told them.”
(NLT)
The word
used for “gospel” in the NKJ and “Good News” used in the NLT are words that
were used in the OT as well as in the NT.
Strongs gives some insight on this word when it says, “1) to bring good
news, to announce glad tidings, 1a) used in the OT of any kind of good
news.” It seems to me that the NLT makes
the message of this verse clearer than that of the NKJV because it tells that
the “rest” was the source of the good news.
The NKJV brings out at the end of this verse a message about faith where
it says, “not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.” Now if this is a picture of salvation and
those that it is speaking of in the OT, those who came out of Egypt were not
saved. However if it is a picture of not
entering into a “spiritual” rest or a rest you get when you turn your life
completely over to God as spoken of in Romans 12:1-2 then the good news is
about the walk with the Lord as opposed to the saving faith of the Lord. You need faith for both of these rests. Paul says in Colossians 2:6 “As you have
therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” This shows that you have to have faith in
your walk with the Lord in the same way as you received Him as your Savior.
2. Spiritual meaning for my life today: I think that one of the key words in this
passage is faith, faith as indirectly spoken of in the verse in Colossians 2:6,
and faith as spoken of in Romans 12: 1-2, where Paul says that in light of all
that the Lord has for you, which he explained in the first eleven chapters of
Romans, then by faith you ought to give yourself as a living sacrifice to the
Lord for worship and for service. I
think of the faith that it took for Abraham to put his son Isaac on the alter
knowing that he was the child of promise.
I too, need that kind of faith to enter into a higher level of worship
and service to the Lord.
The Word of God was refreshing to me today.
My Steps
of Faith Today: To, by faith,
give myself as a living sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ today for worship to
Him and for service to Him.
Memory verse for the week:
Romans 12:5
So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member
belongs to all the others.
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