SPIRITUAL
DIARY For 03/07/2003
My
Worship Time Focus: God’s teaching of
patience
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Hebrews 6:13-14
Message of the verse: “saying, ‘I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU, AND I WILL
SURELY MULTIPLY YOU.’ And thus, having
patiently waited, he obtained the promise.” (NASB) “’I will certainly bless your richly, and I
will multiply your descendants into countless millions.’ Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received
what God had promised.”(NLT)
God promised Abraham
that he would have a son who would be born in his old age and would be the son
who would continue on with the blessings that God would bestow upon his family
that would become the nation of Israel.
God fulfilled his promise in spite of Abraham’s sin and failures to
God. As stated yesterday some of God’s
promises are not affected by the failures of His servants. However the long-term affect of the sin can
still produce heartache. An example of
this was when Abraham went down to Egypt and lied about his wife to protect
himself had long term effects on even the people of this country because he was
not suppose to go there and he certainly was not suppose to lie and one of the
effects of this lie was bringing Hagar back with them and without Hagar there
would not be any Arabs today. I would
like to mention that the word translated “waited patiently” is the opposite of
the word translated slothful. Warren
Wiersbe translates this verse as follows:
“You will obtain and enjoy what God has promised if you diligently apply
yourself to the development of your spiritual life.” This is what the readers needed to hear
because of how they were thinking about going back into Judaism and he knew
this was not the thing for them to do.
Spiritual meaning for
my life today: The Bible has a
lot to say about patience and you hear often in Christian circles that you
should not pray for patience because if you do then God will send tragedy into
your life so you have to learn patience through it. I have recently heard that this is not true
all of the time and thus it will not hurt to pray for more patience and I do
believe that God will not automatically send a hardship my way unless it is in
my best interest to do so. I also know
that many, many times in my life I do things in to big of a hurry just to get
them done no matter how it turns out, and many times I wish I would have had
the patience to do it right the first time.
I remember a sign in the nurse’s office at work that said, “how come you
always have time to do it over, but never have time to do it right the first
time.” This is a lesson that is hard for
me to do and I believe one of the reasons is because I do not always take the
time to pray about it in the first place.
The Word of God was convicting to me as I read it today and
it also has given me some challenges.
My
Steps of Faith Today: My
wife and I are in real need of praying together about things that we need
guidance from the Lord on. One of these
things is when we plan on doing some of the rooms in our house over again with
new decorations. We have failed to have
patience with each other and with the Lord in this area of our lives. I need to step out on faith and begin this
process in our lives together again and do it this time as the Lord leads.
Memory verses for the week:
Psalm 40: 1-3
- I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard
my cry.
- He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry
clay; And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
- And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.
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