SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/15/2014 9:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Fifth Characteristic of the Elect
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 1:6a
Message of the
verse: “6 You also became imitators of us and of the Lord.”
This fifth characteristic of the elect is “A genuine
imitation of the Lord.” The first thing
I want to look at from this part of verse six is the word “imitators” and the
word means to mimic, so Paul is saying that a characteristic of the elect was
to mimic Paul, and those who were with him, Silas, and Timothy, but they were
also to mimic the Lord Jesus Christ.
When a person is genuinely born-again they become a new person: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come (2 Cor.
5:17).” How did this happen “He made Him
who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).”
This is what is called the “Exchange” for Christ took our sin while on
the cross and in exchange for that He gave us His righteousness so that God
does not see our sin anymore, but only sees Christ’s righteousness in us. Because of this new birth He gives us His
Holy Spirit to live in us and thus we have the power from His Spirit to live a
life that will mimic Christ. Now Paul
was also a good person to mimic, for we know that He lived a life, after he
became a believer that was pleasing to the Lord. I can say that one of the first things that
happened to me after being born from above on the 26th of January of
1974 was that I completely lost the desire to swear, for before my conversion I
could hardly say a sentence without swearing, but God took that away from
me. This was one of the first steps of
me mimicking my Lord, along with having a desire to begin to study His Word,
and to tell others about the Lord Jesus Christ and how to be saved, things we
will look at in more detail as we go through this first chapter of 1
Thessalonians.
The Thessalonians were living in a difficult place, for
because of the location of the city there was much travel going through the
city, both by water and on land. This
would bring into the city people of pretty low reputation. There was much prostitution and worship of
idols that went on in this city. Paul
was not there for a very long period of time to teach them, but God changed the
heats of these people so that they wanted to follow the Lord in a very dark
place. It was through the power of the
Holy Spirit that they desired to become imitators of both Paul land of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The work of sanctification
begins immediately after salvation: 1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those
who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,
and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus
Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in
the fullest measure (1 Peter 1:1-2).”
Paul reminded the Romans about this in Romans 6:3-4 “3 Or do you not know that all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him
through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” We have already looked at 2 Cor. 5:17, but
now we will look at Galatians 6:15 “For neither is circumcision anything, nor
uncircumcision, but a new creation.”
When a person becomes born from above there are many things that happen
to him at this time, things we will not go into right now, but just to say that
when a person is born again he has new desires and one of those desires is to
become an imitator of the Lord Jesus Christ.
John MacArthur writes:
“The Thessalonian believers’ lifestyles started becoming far different
from the sordid, idolatrous paganism of their past and from the legalistic
self-righteousness of the Jews in their city.
They had become imitators of Jesus Christ. Paul commanded believers to pursue that
reality as a way of life: ‘Be imitators
of me, just as I also am of Christ’ (1 Cor. 11:1). He told the Corinthians that it was a
progressive experience of sanctification by the Holy Spirit that moved them upward
to increasing levels of glory, more and more into the image of Christ (2 Cor.
3:18).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I believe that
just as when a baby is born that they have a protectiveness that comes from
their mother, so when a person is born again into the family of God that God
protects them from harmful things that could cause great discouragement to them
and thus stop their spiritual growth. A
new believer often sees great answers to their prayers, and I believe that this
is God’s way of increasing their faith.
However when a person walks with the Lord for a longer period of time
they sometimes try to live the Christian life on their own, and this will never
work. Looking back on these
characteristics of the elect has been a good experience for me as I remember
what it was like when God first saved me, and that is good to remember.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Be an imitator of Christ.
A note of understanding
form what is going on now: I am
attempting to do two new blog posts a day in order to continue to keep up with
our study in Jeremiah, so when I do the bog post on Jeremiah I will not include
some of the things that are on the post from 1 Thessalonians so in order to
follow the Bible questions they will be on the post from 1 Thessalonians until
we finish this first chapter.
Memory verses for the
week: “Philippians 2:5-8.
5 Have this attitude in
yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form
of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied
Himself, taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness
of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a
man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death
on a cross.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Thirty-nine.”
Today’s Bible
question: “Was Zedekiah carried to
Babylon?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/15/2014 10:11 AM
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