SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 08-20-03
My
Worship Time Focus: An Example of a
Surrendered Will
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
James 1:9-11
Message
of the verses: “9 But let the
brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position; 10 and let the rich
man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass
away. 11 For the sun rises with a
scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls off, and the beauty
of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his
pursuits will fade away.” (NASB) “Christians who are poor should be glad, for
God has honored them. And those who are
rich should be glad, for God humbled them.
They will fade away like a flower in the field. The hot sun rises and dries up the grass; the
flower withers, and its beauty fades away.
So also, wealthy people will fade away with all of their
achievements.” (NLT)
The reason
for skipping to verses 9-11 is because that is the outline that Dr. Wiersbe has
in his book on James, “Be Mature.”
Yesterday when doing verse 4 I learned from Dr. Wiersbe’s book that one
of the most difficult stages of maturing is weaning and he sites a verse
in the Psalms where David dealt with this principle of weaning. “2 Surely I have composed and quieted my
soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned
child within me.” A weaned child is a
sign of a maturing child, for it does give liberty to the child, but at times
it is difficult for the child. God weans
the believer in order to bring maturity to him and He does it through trials
and in verses 9-11 James gives an example of this by writing about a poor
believer and a rich believer. The poor
believer can rejoice when realizing that his true riches are in the Lord who tests
him. The rich man can rejoice in the
Lord when testing comes knowing that some day all of his riches will fade away
any way. One point that needs to be made
about testing that comes from the Lord and that if believers do not surrender
to the Lord then these believers will become even more immature.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I can say
that in the standards of many people around the world my family would be
considered rich, and I can say with a sincere heart that the Lord has blessed
my family with an abundance of material blessing, along with more than an
abundance of spiritual blessing, of neither do we deserve. God is certainly
testing us with the uncertainty of our investments, and I can thankfully say
that He has given me the grace to deal with this testing, and I hope that I can
say that I have surrendered to His will as to what He will do concerning the
returning of our investments, for He owns it all, and even though I have made
some mistakes investing the funds that He has trusted me with I am learning
what these mistakes are and by His grace will never make them again. But it is the joy of knowing that the Lord
cares for me so much that He has allowed these things to happen to me in order
to take me further along in the maturing process of becoming more like the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The Word of God has been a challenge to my heart as I read
it this morning.
My
Steps of Faith Today: To
continue to surrender to the Lord in this testing that He is putting me
through. I do count it all joy because I
know that the Lord is in control of my life and also He will not do things to
harm me, only doing things for my good and His glory.
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