Intro to 1 Thess 4:9-12

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/14/2014 11:24 AM

My Worship Time                                                         Focus:  Introduction to Shoe-Leather Faith

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

            I wrote in the SD from yesterday that I would be trying to complete two SD,’ today, one from Jeremiah 25, and one from the forth chapter of 1 Thessalonians.  With this said this SD will be a bit different that others as it will not have all of the things that I put in most of my SD’s.  I have decided to quote the introduction to John MacArthur’s commentary on this chapter that he wrote which includes verses 4-9 of chapter four.  I have listened to his sermon on this section and believe that the points that he makes on the introduction to the sermon and also incorporated in his commentary are greatly beneficial to all who read them.

            “Christianity is a shoe-leather faith—a living, practical faith that hits the streets in normal, everyday life, affecting everything from believers’ simplest attitudes and most mundane actions to their profoundest thoughts and noblest deeds.  Although any religion should affect the way its adherents live, no false religion—no matter how high its ethical standards—can genuinely transform the lives of its followers in a way that restrains the fallen flesh.  Only by belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ does the power of God transform lives so that what believers profess they are able to live.  The apostle Paul’s continued insistence that the Thessalonians live that way was the motive for the practical expressions in this passage.

            “An unsettling situation within the church at Thessalonica intensified his concern for the Thessalonians’ spiritual growth.  From the beginning, their church was genuine, and Paul recognized that ‘Constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you’(1Thess. 1:3-4; cf. 2:13).  They were soon a model church in their region; they ‘became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.  For the word of the Lord…sounded forth from [them], not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place [their] faith toward God [went] forth, so that we [had] no need to say anything’ (1:7-8; cf. 2 Cor. 8:1-5; 2 Thess. 1:3-4).  However, at the conclusion of Pauls commendations there is the hint of a problem.

            “The apostle had taught the Thessalonians about the return of Christ, and they eagerly anticipated that glorious coming (1:10).  However, they were apparently overly anxious about the Lord’s return and wanted to make sure they did not miss it.  Their zealous preoccupation with Jesus’ coming led to the mistaken notion that temporal responsibilities no longer mattered in light of His return.  Thus Paul had to give them substantial instruction to correct their misunderstandings and unhealthy responses to the promise of the imminent return of the Savior (4:13-511; 2 Thess. 2:1012).

            “A zealous but balanced anticipation of the return of Christ is a good thing.  The apostle John had such an earnest expectation for the Parousia in his conclusion to the book of Revelation: ‘He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’ Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus’” (Rev. 22:20).  The apostle James told his readers, ‘Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.  The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.  You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near’ (James 5:7-8).  The apostle Peter wrote, ‘But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.  Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless’ (2 Peter 3:13-14).  Paul desired that the Corinthians would be ‘awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 1:7).

            “But the Thessalonians were allowing their excitement and enthusiasm for the second coming of Christ to overshadow the ordinary responsibilities of life.  They seemed to lose their balance and composure (2 Thess. 2:2; 3:10) and became so zealous and agitated concerning eschatological events that they neglected their everyday duties.  Such an unbalanced perspective on Jesus’ return, however, contradicted the Lord’s teaching, for example, in the parable of the ten minas, in which He sought to correct the disciples’ mistaken idea that ‘the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately’ (Luke 19:11; cf. 24:21; Acts 1:6).  As He introduced the parable, Christ indicated how believers ought to live in view of His coming earthly kingdom:  ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return.  And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas and said to them, ‘Do business with this until I come back (Luke 19:12-13).  Christians are to carry on with their everyday lives and responsibilities until Christ returns.

            Because of the Thessalonians’ skewed and unsettled outlook concerning the return of Christ, Paul needed to bring them down to earth and give them four practical exhortations for the life until Jesus comes; love each other more, lead a quiet life, mind your own business, and work with your hands.  Obedience to these commands would be a more appropriate testimony to unbelievers than the Thessalonians’ extreme preoccupation with the Lord’s return, which preoccupation came at the expense of caring for life’s responsibilities.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I look at the introduction of this chapter I am reminded of when I first became a believer and how I wanted to tell who ever would listen to me that the Lord was soon coming back in the rapture of the church.  When I joined a church the Pastor sat me down and told me that there were other doctrines in the Scripture that I needed to study, and that is what I have been doing ever since.  I still love returning to the study of the end times and there are times when the Lord will bring people into my life that I can share this precious truth with them.

6/14/2014 12:08 PM 

PT-3 "Why Should A Believer Be Sexually Moral" (1 Thess. 4:8)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/13/2014 7:58 AM

My Worship Time                                 Focus:  PT-3 Why Should A Believer Be Sexually Moral

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:8

            Message of the verses:  In our study from yesterday I reviewed what we have been looking at from verses 3-8 of chapter four.  Today we will be looking at the last portion of this third main point from John MacArthur’s outline.

            Because of God’s Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 4:8):  “8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”

            This is the third reason that we will be looking at as to why believers should remain sexually pure.  The first reason was because of God’s vengeance, and the second reason was because of God’s purpose and this third reason is because of God giving us the Holy Spirit to live within us.

            Let us begin by looking at what MacArthur has to say about the word reject.  “(nullifies, makes void, cancels, disregards, despises’) the command to abstain from sexual immorality is not rejecting man but God who gives His Holy Spirit.  Thus if the Thessalonians disobeyed Paul’s words, they would not merely be rejecting him, the church elders, or some faction in the church, but the Spirit of God.  The standard of sexual morality is God’s and He gave believers the Holy Spirit to enable them to keep that norm.”  Let’s think about this highlighted statement for a moment.  In our world today, and perhaps even in many churches today people seem to forget that it was God who created this world and all of the other billions of planets and lastly created man, and so God has the right to rule over the affairs of men, and He does.  He has the right to command us not to engage in immoral sexuality activities and as for believers He has given them the Holy Spirit to help them in the sanctification process.  Paul says that the Holy Spirit is our “down payment” assuring us that we will someday enter heaven.  The Law of God given to Moses shows us the holiness of God, and God knew that we could not keep it, but now believers have in them the Holy Spirit to give us the help we need to keep God’s Laws and commands.  Jeremiah talks about this in the 31^st chapter of his book:  “31 “Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33  "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34  "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ’Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."”  The author of the book of Hebrews repeats this in his writing showing us that it is for us today.

            John MacArthur writes the following about the Greek verb that is translated gives:  “The Greek verb gives denotes timelessness.  Paul told the Thessalonians that God gives believers the timeless gift of His Holy Spirit (cf. Isa. 59:21; 2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13-14; 2 Tim. 1:14) so that they might live pure and holy lives (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19-20; Rom. 8:16; 2 Cor. 5:5; 1 John 2:27).  If they understood that precise identification of God’s Spirit, it should have been unthinkable for the Thessalonians to enter into sexual sin and thereby reject the Lord who gave them the Spirit.”

            MacArthur concludes this chapter in his commentary with these sobering words:  “The practice of sexual sin violates the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It spurns the Lord’s will, disregards His purposes, defies His commands, rejects His love, and flouts and abuses His grace.  Perhaps most frightening and sobering of all, those who engage in sexual immorality discount the reality of God’s righteous judgment against sin.  Thus the apostle’s exhortation to the Thessalonians ought to prompt all believers to faithfully heed these words and diligently use the means God has given them to abstain from all forms of sexual sin (Rom. 13:13-14; 1 Peter 2:11).”

            As I stated in our last SD we will begin to look at the book of Jeremiah in our next SD, and I will try and also take up verses 9-12 in the forth chapter of 1 Thessalonians in another SD that I want to do each day, or at least try to do each day until we are done with that section.  Jeremiah 25 is a very interesting chapter in Jeremiah’s book and I look forward to looking at that chapter.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am so very glad that I have been able to look at this portion of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians because it has reinforced the teaching of sexual morality to me.  In the world we live in today we are being bombarded with sex and it is good to realize that we as believers do not need to fall prey to these things we are being bombarded with.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Holy Spirit who lives within me to keep me from falling into any sin, and I desire to keep a short list with the Lord.

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 2:5-9

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.  9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Matthias” (Acts 1:26).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said, ‘Pray that you do not enter into temptation?’”

Answer in our next SD.

6/13/2014 8:44 AM 

PT-2 "Why Should A Believer Be Sexually Moral" (1 Thess. 4:7

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/12/2014 9:28 AM

My Worship Time                                 Focus:  Why Should A Believer Be Sexually Moral PT-2

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:7

            Message of the verses:  Before we begin commentary on verse seven I want to do a quick review on how we got here.  We are following the outline of John MacArthur’s commentary on 1 Thessalonians.  As we began this chapter which covers verses 3-8 of chapter four, MacArthur wrote the following as he ends his introductory commentary:  “That this general, preventive exhortation to sexual morality began his list of practical instructions in the final two chapters of 1 Thessalonians highlights Paul’s major concern for sexual fidelity in Thessalonica.  With this background in mind, one can examine this passage by asking three questions:  What kind of sexual conduct does God require?  How can a believer be sexually moral?  Why should a believer be sexually moral?”  As you see we are in the last question that is on this list and as we look at this section MacArthur wrote:  “He (Paul) offered three reasons that the Thessalonians and all believers should abstain from sexual immorality:  because of God’s vengeance, because of God’s purpose, and because of God’s Holy Spirit.”  We are looking at the second reason in today’s SD and God willing we will look at the last reason in our next SD.

            As far as after we finish this last section in our next SD my plans are to try and do two SD’s a day, one beginning back in the book of Jeremiah and then one in our study on 1 Thessalonians until I finish verses 9-12 and then I plan on doing just one SD per day until next month when we will look at verses 13-18 of 1 Thessalonians 4 which are the very famous verses that concern the rapture of the church.  When many people look at what the Bible has to say about the rapture or the church they come to verses 13-18 of the fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians.  I look forward to looking at those verses in July.

            Because of God’s Purpose (1 Thessalonians 4:7):  “7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.”

            MacArthur writes:  “That Christians should strive to be sexually moral is in complete accord with God’s general plan for their lives.  Therefore, a second reason Paul gave for abstaining from sexual immorality was because that command fit God’s purpose for the Thessalonians.  For the third time in this passage, Paul used a form of the word sanctification, which emphasized to them that when God effectually called them to salvation, He also called them to holiness.  A life of impurity was inconsistent with believers’ high calling (Eph. 4:1).”  “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” 

            As we look at when the Lord created the earth He made a man and a woman who shortly after being created sinned against their creator.  God promised to send a Redeemer to take care of the problem of sin.  Years after creating man we see that all mankind was living in sin and so God (can we say started over) with eight people and a boat as He sent the flood to destroy all people with the exception of those in the boat.  After that God called Abram, who He later called Abraham to begin a people that God would use to bring the Messiah into the world.  Jesus came into the world to purchase salvation for all those who would accept the fact that He died in their place.  Believers are called into salvation in order to be saved from their sins and in order to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord.  The word for sanctification means holiness as MacArthur explains:  “The phrase ‘in sanctification’ indicates that the believer’s position of holiness in the direct result of God’s effectual call.  God’s purpose in salvation was to produce a holy people who would walk worthy of the divine call into His kingdom.  The call to salvation is inseparable from the call to holy and pure living.  Ephesians 2:8-10 says:  ‘8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.’  Paul was intent on presenting the church at Thessalonica and the church everywhere as a bride ‘having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing’ (Eph. 5:27), “but as one set apart and pure before God.”  Therefore sexual sin is utterly inconsistent with God’s present and ultimate purpose for believers.”

            As we look back at the world we see that God has made a plan to save man, to save all those who would call on His name for salvation.  There is a hymn that goes along with this that I wish to quote at this time: 

1.    I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

o    Refrain:
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

2.    For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim;
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

3.    And now complete in Him,
My robe, His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

4.    Lord, now indeed I find
Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

5.    When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

6.    And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down,
All down at Jesus’ feet.

As we look at the words of “Jesus Paid It All” we see that He has done everything for us, and that now we need to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord and we can do this through the power of the Holy Spirit as we feed upon His Word. 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Remember that Jesus paid it all for me and with this in mind live a life that is pleasing to Him, for all to Him I owe.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to guide my steps in what I do today.

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 2:5-9

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.  9 for this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “A prophet of their own” (Titus 1:12).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who was chosen to replace Judas as an apostle?”

Answer in our next SD.

6/12/2014 10:29 AM

 

 

 

Why Should A Believer Be Sexually Moral PT-1 (1Thess. 4:6b-8)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/11/2014 9:41 AM

My Worship Time                                 Focus:  Why Should A Believer Be Sexually Moral PT-1

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:6b-8

            Message of the verses:  “because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”

            As we begin this SD we are moving into a new main section in the outline that John MacArthur has in his commentary, and the question that was probably on the minds of those in Thessalonica was “Why should we be sexual moral?”  This is a good question for them to ask, and a good question for us to ask and over the next three days we will try and answer this question.  Now as far as the Thessalonian believer they grew up under a sinful way of thinking about sexual morality for that is all they knew, and then along comes Paul and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit give them the Gospel and tells them about their need for salvation, and many of them are saved.  Paul stays as long as he can and then leaves because of persecution, and now he is concerned about these very new and very young believers and so he writes to them this letter.  He wants to make sure that their culture is not going to be used by the enemy to cause them to sin and then stunt their growth in the Lord.  Paul is grateful to the Lord that this did not happen, but he wants to encourage them to continue to excel still more in the Lord.

            As for today in our country, a country that was built on the principles of the Bible, we should know better than to fall into sexual immorality, but because of the sexual shock that began in the 1960”s and because of the bombardment of evolution our culture is fast falling into the kind of culture that Paul saw in his travels giving out the gospel.  (See SD on Why the lie of evolution has encouraged sexual immorality.)

            John MacArthur gives three reasons why we should be sexual moral and we will begin with the first reason that is on this list:  “because of God’s vengeance; because of God’s purpose, and because of God’s Holy Spirit.”   

Because of God’s Vengeance:  (1 Thess. 4:6b):  “because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.”

            I want to give a quote from Warren Wiersbe as we begin this section:  “God is no respecter of persons; He must deal with His children when they sin (Col. 3:23-25).  A church member criticized her pastor because he was preaching against sin in the lives of Christians ‘After all,’ She said ‘sin in the life of a believer is different from sin in the lives of unsaved people.’  ‘Yes,’ replied the pastor, ‘it is worse.’

            “To despise God’s commandments is to invite the judgment of God and also to grieve the Spirit of God.”

            I realize that in my life when I see things happen, especially in our government at this time, and also in our country at this time that I want to extract judgment upon them, but that is not what I am to do for Paul writes in Romans 12:19 “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.”  God is the only one to extract judgment upon people and on a nation.  Even when I see God judging a person or a nation I am not to shout for joy.  There is a verse in Proverbs (I think) that tells us not to be too happy when someone is being judged by the Lord or He will stop judging them.  This is something to keep in mind.

            One of the reasons that God gives out judgment is the violation of this:  “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”  This has happened far too often by believers in the church in this country in our day and God will judge those who do this, for as the pastor said in Dr. Wiersbe’s quote “Sin is worse in the life of a believer.”

            One of the things that I pray for is that God, through His Holy Spirit will give me the wisdom to understand when I am being disciplined by Him, for there are times when a sickness will come upon me and I wonder if this is just a natural illness, is God trying to teach me something or am I being disciplined by the Lord.  I have to quote the following verses:  “23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).”  There is an old gospel song that goes along with this subject: 

“Sin will take you farther than you wanna go
Slowly but wholly taking control
Sin will leave you longer than you wanna stay
Sin will cost you far more than you wanna pay”

            Paul writes that sexual sin is a sin that is done in the body, and therefore if a person continues in this sin and does not repent then he surely will be disciplined by the Lord, and perhaps even have his marriage destroyed or weakened.  He may also loose rewards that he would have received from the Lord at the judgment seat of Christ. 

            I have read a book on sexual morality written by a couple of men who were sinning in this way and because of the grace of God were able to stop this sin and thus got together and wrote a book about it.  The book is entitled “Every Man’s Battle” Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time.”  I wish to quote a couple of paragraphs from the book, but first let me say that the quotes will be from a section that talks about believers making a decision to become sexually pure in mind and body.  The section is entitled “All You Need.”

            “As the basis for your victory, did you know that God has provided you with everything you need for a life of purity?  And it’s better than a state-of-the-art GPS navigational system.

            “At Calvary, He purchased for you the freedom and authority to live in purity.  That freedom and that authority are His gift to you through the presence of His Spirit, who took up residence within you when you gave your life to Christ.  The freedom and authority are wrapped up in our new inner connection to His divine nature, which is the link that give us His power and the fulfillment of His promises:

            “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through the you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4) (NIV)

            “It’s like the situation facing Joshua and the people of Israel as they prepared to cross the Jordan River and possess the Promised Land.  What did God say to Joshua?

            “Have I not command you?  Be strong and courageous!  Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with your wherever you go.  (Joshua 1:9).He’d given the Israelites all they needed.  They merely had to cross the river.

            “Regarding sexual purity, God knows the provision He’s made for us.  We aren’t short on power or authority, but what we lack is urgency.  We must choose to be strong and courageous to walk into purity.  In the millisecond it takes to make that choice, the Holy Spirit will start guiding you and walking through the struggle with you.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I wish to remember the consequences of sexual sin in the life of a believer, and remember the promises that God has given to me as a believer to keep me away from sexual sins.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Proverbs 3:5-6.

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 2:5-9

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 to the point of death, even death on a cross.  9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “That Joseph would bury Jacob in the Promised Land.”

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘the Cretians are always liars, evil beasts?’”

Answer in our next SD.

6/11/2014 10:54 AM

The Believer Should Not Take Advantage of Others (1 Thess. 4:6a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/10/2014 9:52 AM

My Worship Time                             Focus:  The Believer Should Not Take Advantage of Others

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:6a

            Message of the verse:  “and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter”

            We are looking at a third practical, unambiguous principle that emerges from Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians on sexual morality as seen in the partial verse above. 

            What we see in this verse is something that unfortunately is too common in the life of the church in today’s world, and that is there are times when men and women who are both believers work together in a church setting and they do not take the time and care of not praying about temptation and then one thing leads to another and before they can stop it they become sexually involved.  As we look at the word “transgress” in this verse we should know that it means “to sin against.”  John MacArthur says that this word also includes the concept of stepping over the line and exceeding the lawful limits.  He has this to say about the “defraud:” “Defraud means to selfishly, greedily take something for personal gain and pleasure at someone else’s expense.” “Whenever believers seek to satisfy their physical desires and gain sexual pleasure at the expense of another believer, they have violated this command.”

            There is a very famous story in the Old Testament that illustrates this point that Paul is making and that story tells the downfall of Israel’s greatest king.  King David stayed home from a battle that his army was fighting and he should have been there with his men, not fighting with them, but leading them the way that perhaps a general does in our modern army.  He was sitting on the roof of his house and saw a woman taking a bath on the roof of her house, and the Bible states that she was lovely to look at.  At this point David should have run like Joseph did, but he did not and he eventually slept with her and she became pregnant.  This woman was the wife of a good man, a man who was one of David’s great warriors, and so David violated what Paul is writing about to the Thessalonians.  David eventually had her husband put in harm’s way and he was killed in a battle and so David married the woman, and the baby died.  David did not confess his sin to the Lord and so God sent Nathan the prophet to him with a story.  The story was about a rich man and a poor man.  The rich man had many sheep, and the poor man had only one.  The rich man forced the poor man to give him his one little lamb for food for his guests.  David was angry over this story and then Nathan told David that he was the man.  David had violated a fellow believer by sleeping with his wife and then having him killed.  As believers Paul tells us not to do this, not to defraud a believer in this way.  However we can violate a believer by simply looking at their wife with sexual motives on our minds, and Jesus says that this is sin:  “27  “You have heard that it was said, ’YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; 28  but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”  What does Jesus mean in verse 29?  Perhaps it is this:  ““I made a covenant with my eyes  not to look with lust at a young woman.”  This comes from Job 31:1, and remembers what God had to say about the righteousness of Job.  Job was a very rich man but he did not take advantage of his riches in order to sleep with other women, for he kept his eyes pure and this is a step that David should have followed.

            Jesus speaks of the subject of sinfully taking advantage of another believer in Matthew 18:6-7:   “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.  7  "Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!””  MacArthur says that these “little ones” refers to young believers in the Lord and goes on to say:  “The seriousness of Christ’s admonition to believers in Matthew 18:6 has no equal in all His teaching.  He said that a believer who defrauds another believer deserves to be killed!  So Christians must take heed to their own holiness, avoid all ungodly influences, and never use other people, especially fellow believers, to achieve sinful gratification.”  Paul wrote in other places about this issue:  “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this-not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way (Rom. 14:13).”  “1Co 8:13 Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Peter writes in his letter that we are to be holy just as the Lord is holy.  We remember what Job says about his eyes, and we wonder if all of this is possible.  Paul writes that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.  We cannot do this on our owns, but if God desires for us to be holy we can trust Him to make us that way, especially in the sexual ways that Paul is writing about to the Thessalonians in chapter four.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to keep me holy.

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 2:5-9

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.  9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Acts.”

Today’s Bible question:  “What did Jacob make Joseph promise him before he died?”

Answer in our next SD.

6/10/2014 10:41 AM

The Believer Should Not Act Like Unbelievers (1 Thess. 4:5)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/9/2014 9:07 AM

My Worship Time                                     Focus:  The Believer Should Not Act Like Unbelievers

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:5

            Message of the verses:  “5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;”

            We are looking at the second point about how believers can keep themselves from sexual immorality, in other words sustaining from sexual immorality. 

            I suppose that people like me who did not get saved until a bit later in life are going to have a more difficult time with the subject we are looking at today.  However Paul began with older people in the city of Thessalonica when he preached there and they had to follow what he is writing about in this section, so with the power of the Holy Spirit and also the Word of God, something that they did not have in the form that believers have today we too can follow what Paul writes which was under the power of the Holy Spirit.

            What Paul is doing in this fifth verse is talking about the difference between believers and unbelievers and thus he uses the word Gentiles as those who do not know Christ as their Savior and Lord.  Let us look at a verse that has helped me understand this truth:  “"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."”  This is John 3:36 and the speaker is John the Baptist, and what he is saying is that those who have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord are saved and belong to God and those who did not trust Christ will be lost and the wrath of God will come upon them.  John is saying that there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who are saved and those who are lost.

            Those who are unbelievers have an uncontrolled desire for sexual gratification, and this was typical of those who lived in Paul’s day in Thessalonica, however Paul is telling his readers that they are no longer to live like the unbelievers because they are now knew creatures in Christ and everything is now different in their lives.

            Let’s look at what John MacArthur writes about passion and lustful in this verse:  “Passion (pathos) means ‘uncontrollable desires, compelling feelings, overpowering urges’ and has a negative connotation here (cf. Rom. 1:26; Col. 3:5).  Lustful (epithumias) refers to an out-of-control craving, usually for that which is unrighteous or illegitimate (cf. Rom. 6:12; 2 Tim. 2:22; Titus 3:3; 1 Peter 4:3), although it can refer to legitimate desires and longings (cf. Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 2:17).  The words used together forcefully characterize the immorality of those who do not know God.”

            Let us look at a couple of verses from Paul’s letter to the Galatians “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me (Gal. 2:20).”  “24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:24-25).”  Paul also wrote the following from his letter to the Colossians:  “5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6  For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.  8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. 9  Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10  and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him- (Col. 3:5-10).”

            MacArthur writes something that helps me to understand that I, as a believer can also have these kind of thoughts and even actions if I don’t yield to the Spirit and to the Word:  “But believers can cultivate immoral thoughts and commit immoral acts—so they need this instruction.”  The instruction found in the verses we have looked and also from 1 John 3:9-10:  “9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”  The key word found in this passage is “practice.”  When we are born we are born into sin because the sin nature is passed on by the father, in other words we sin because we are sinners.  When we are born-again we are given a new nature which opposes the old nature and when we sin after we become a believer we sin because we yield to the old nature which always wants to sin.  John is saying that we do not practice sin.

            MacArthur finishes this section with the following paragraph.  “Christians must not lower themselves to a level of pagan sexual behavior determined merely by unthinking passions and uncontrolled fleshly urges.  Because of their intimate relationship with a holy God, believers must not subject themselves to an ungodly society’s vast array of sexual immoral temptations (cf. 2 Tim. 2:22; 1 John 2:15-16).  Over exposure to such temptations will only lower one’s resistance and diminish one’s outrage, thus weakening spiritual resolve and virtue.  Scripture warns God’s children to stay far away from, even to flee, all immorality (1 Cor. 6:18).  Lustful thoughts and feelings can lead believers to actions that are completely incongruous with their position in the body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 6:15-20).”  I listened one day to a person talking about this subject resting or at least trying to resist thought patterns that can cause a believer to fall.  The man was talking about a couple of men in the service and one of them was a small man who was a very good boxer, while the other man was a very big man who did not have great skills in boxing.  The smaller man needed someone to spar with and so the larger man thought he would do it as he thought that the little man would not do much harm to him.  He was wrong as the little man kept hitting him with blows that by themselves would not harm him but as he repeated the blows the larger man eventually was hurt.  This is how the old nature and the devil work on believers, and if we do not use the Word of God as Jesus did in Matthew chapter four we can be defeated.

            John MacArthur said the following in his sermon on the subject we were talking about in our study a couple days ago, but it goes along with what we are talking about here:  “No, the question is never...what can I do and get away with it?...the question is never how far can I

go, the question is how can I live so pure, so sanctified, so noble in my Christian living that I honor my body, I honor therefore my Lord and His redeemed church? Don't let your body control you.  We live in a culture where the whole name of the game is get the mind away and let the body go and Christianity is the opposite, the absolute opposite.

 

            “I have said this so many times when talking to other pastors who have fallen into sin, isn't there some point in time where you say, "Wait a minute, this is my marriage, this is my ministry, this is everything? Stop." And the answer I get is, "You never think about that." Why? Because long before the mind has been eliminated from the process and all that is left is the passion of the body. Don't let your body control you. That means walking in the Spirit which means being filled by the Spirit which means letting the Word dwell in you richly which means putting the Word in.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can have all the right motives not to fall into sexual sin, but I have to first of all keep my mind clean from sexual thoughts and fill it with the Word of God in order to win this victory, one day at a time.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Win the battle, one day at a time.

 

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 2:5-9

 

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 in the likeness of men.  8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.  9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name

 

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Shepherds” (Luke 2:9-16).

 

Today’s Bible question:  “What book contains the history of the early days of the Christian church?”

 

Answer in our next SD.

 

6/9/2014 10:48 AM    

A Big Reason Why our Country and World are in Great Trouble (1 Thess. 4:3-8)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/8/2014 10:59 PM

My Worship Time                 Focus:  How The Lie of Evolution has affected Sexual Morality

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:3-8

            Message of the verses:  “3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”

            I think that it was in 2011 when I first became serious in studying about creation, creation that the Bible talks about.  I read and then lead a Bible Study on a book that John MacArthur wrote entitled “The Battle for the Beginning.”  One of the statements from that book that I hope that I never forget is that evolution is impossible, it cannot happen.  MacArthur even said that God could not make evolution work, and I believe this statement.

            I have to say that this SD will be a bit different than most of the ones that I write because I am not really following a set amount of verses from the Bible even though this subject fits in well with our study of 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, which is why I quoted them at the beginning of this SD.

            One may wonder why I would say that evolution effects sexual morality when evolution is a theory about the origins of the earth.  I believe that this “theory of evolution” came straight from Satan, and Satan has a lot of time to develop the things he wants to develop many years before they actually become a problem, and in this case they are a great problem.  I am not too familiar with a trial that took place many years ago that had to do with the teaching of evolution, but I am sure that there is plenty to say about that trial on the internet. This was the beginning of the downfall of teaching in schools in our country.  When I was in the eighth grade I was first introduced to evolution and it was at that time that I told my parents that did not want to attend church anymore because I believed in evolution, and this is one of the purposes of this lie, to make people think that there is no God, and God did not create the world’s as Genesis describes it.  If there is no God and if things just happened by some kind of accident then we are not accountable to God.  While attending our Church service this evening I listened to a missionary who ministers in downtown Chicago.  He stated that he was told that by someone who did not want to hear the teachings of the Scriptures that “we are past that kind of thing because we know that there is no God who created us.”  This is a very dangerous teaching that will cause people not to believe in God and then because of their unbelief they will spend eternity in hell.

            Perhaps you can begin to see why it is not hard to understand why evolution can produce sexual immorality for if man is now the highest chain on the evolution rung then all sex is, is something only for pleasure with whom every you desire to have it with.  This too will get a person into trouble.  Now I want to quote from John MacArthur’s sermon on this subject in conclusion to this SD.  I will have to break into the middle of his sermon but once we see the whole quote it will be understood.

            “The church has literally imbibed [consuming] this. And when you go back and look at the roots of it all, you really could start with Charles Darwin. Once the thinking of Charles Darwin, which I believe was certainly spawned by Satan, invaded the world and said, "We are not the creatures of God, we are simply the products of chance," then all morality was questionable. If we are nothing but the result of a collection of atoms that occurred sometime in the past or something that crawled out of some primeval ooze somewhere, then there is no real morality. Charles Darwin influenced people like Karl Marx who took Darwinian evolution to its logical extreme politically and he influenced people like Sigmund Freud who took Darwinian evolution to its extreme in terms of psychology and personal behavior. They influenced people like Friedrich Nietzsche who decided that really there was no God, God was dead, family life was unimportant. All that was important was pleasure and fulfillment.

           

“The influence philosophers like Bertrand Russell who mocked all Christian values and along came people influenced by them. Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood, Ernest Hemingway, probably the most classically famous Hedonist in western culture. Havlok(?) Ellis (?), Margaret Mead, Alfred Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Hugh Hefner, and they all flow out of that same basic line of philosophical thinking. What you have is a sexual revolution produced by atheistic, hedonistic, pleasure mad, anti family, homosexual, pornographic, perverted people. It starts, as it were, supposedly in the environs of science and philosophy, it ends up in behavior. And mix that kind of behavior with alcohol and drugs and you have the American culture. And what is so frightening about it is that the church doesn't seem to be aware of what's happening and it jumps on the self-fulfilling, feeling good bandwagon, unwittingly capitulating to the philosophy of atheists and evolutionists.

           

“And I guess we would have to say that in Paul's time the kind of behavior that existed there would have been as bad, and as I said earlier maybe worse, there was no shame attached to immoral behavior at all in Paul's time. No shame attached to any sexual conduct at all. There was in that society a plethora of prostitutes, concubines, mistresses, homosexuals, pedophiles, transvestites, temple harlots, adulterers and adulteresses and they abounded in that culture. In fact, it was from that very mass of people that the churches were plucked. Paul says to the Corinthians, "And such were some of you." What? "Fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, effeminates."”

 

There are a couple of things that upset me when I think about evolution.  First of all it is a lie, second this is partially the reason that our country is in the trouble that it is in.  Thirdly it is believed by many born-again believers because they are too lazy to dig into the truth of Scripture to find out it is a lie.  Lastly it can undermine other doctrines found in the Bible, for if they tear this one apart, then what will stop them from tearing others apart.

 

Answer to our last Bible question:  “To Egypt” (Genesis 12:10).

 

Today’s Bible question:  “Who were the first persons, other than Joseph and Mary, to hear that Jesus had been born?”

 

Answer in our next SD.

6/8/2014 11:33 PM

 

 

How Can A Believer Be Sexually Moral? PT-1 (1 Thess. 4:4-6a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/7/2014 9:09 AM

My Worship Time                                Focus:  How Can A Believer Be Sexually Moral?  (PT-1)

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:4-6A

            Message of the verses:  Before we get started on our subject for today I wish to use the ending quote from John MacArthur’s commentary from our subject of yesterday’s SD (What Kind of Sexual Conduct Does God Require?) We will have to look first at 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 before we look at his ending quote:  “15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

            “Paul may have had such sins in mind when he later told the Corinthians, ‘You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons: you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons’ (1 Cor. 10:21).  The demonic cup and table refer to the worship in pagan temples in Corinth, and part of that idolatrous ritual entailed the worshipers having sexual intercourse with temple prostitutes.  The apostle was concerned that the new Corinthian believers had not completely abandoned such activities.  The situation at Corinth, where Paul was when he wrote the Thessalonian epistles, surely highlighted the danger of sexual sin and motivated Paul’s warning to the Thessalonians.  The command, then, is for total abstinence from any sexual activity outside marriage.”   

            Now we will proceed with the subject of today’s SD beginning with the verses we will be looking at over the next few days:  “4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter (1 Thess. 4:4-61).”

            We will begin today to look at the first of three timeless principles that Paul gives here for maintaining sexual morality.  It is good to remember that the temptation that we undergo is directed towards that old nature, the sights, sounds and philosophies affect the old nature that all believers still have and will continue to have until their death or until the Lord comes at the rapture of the Church.

            The Body Should Not Control the Believer (1 Thess. 4:4):  “4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,”

            As one reads through the NT they come across lists of sinful desires and practices, and example of this is found in Galatians chapter five where Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, but before that he has another list, a list of sinful activities.  “17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 19  Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20  idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21  envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:17-21).”  Jesus also gave lists of sinful activities in some of His sermons.  My point in all of this is that not all believers have troubles with all sinful activities, but we all have trouble with some just as Paul wrote in verse 17, and he also wrote about this in Romans chapter seven where he stated that he was doing the things that he did not want to do and not doing the things he wanted to do.  We Are In A War, and that war pits the spirit against the flesh.  Many male believers have the temptations with sexual sins either by thought or by deed, and here is a good point to remember that all sins begins in the mind, and the mind is a part of the body, and are lesson for today is that we need to control our bodies and not have our bodies control us.  This may seem impossible, and left to ourselves it is, but as Paul wrote to the Galatians and the Corinthians we have the Holy Spirit living in us, the third Person of the Trinity. 

            John MacArthur says this about the word “know”:  Know is from oida, which carries the idea of having the knowledge or skill necessary to accomplish a desired goal.  Every Christian needs to know himself well so as to understand his weaknesses and evil propensities and, thereby know how to possess (‘gain mastery over’) his own vessel.”

            I want to write briefly about the word vessel to say that some believe because this word is used in 1 Peter speaking of a wife that Paul is talking about a wife in this passage.  Paul writes in some of his letters, like Colossians and Ephesians about the family, but he is not writing about the family here so the word vessel here speaks of our bodies and we are to know how to possess it in sanction and honor as verse four states.  MacArthur writes “Paul was admonishing the Thessalonians to control their bodies, the unredeemed human flesh that is the beachhead for sin and immorality (cf. Rom. 7:18; 8:5-8, 23).  For this reason Paul urged believers to kill the flesh (cf. Rom. 13:14; 2 Cor. 7:1), live by the Spirit (Rom. 8:13), and dedicate their bodies to God and allow His Spirit to renew their minds so that the body would not control them (Rom. 12:1-2).”

            Just think about when you see an advertisement on your TV, and you have to ask the question “What is the advertisement appealing to?”  The answer is your physical appetite, and they do a good job in doing it too.  I leased a car last November and after that I received a survey to fill out and some of the questions that were asked was why I leased this car.  Did I lease this car “to show it off” now that is not exactly the question, but that was the meaning of the question.  My answer was no I leased the car because it was a good deal, and that it will get me where I want to go.  This survey assumes that the advertisement to “my flesh” worked. 

            We see advertisements of half naked women selling toothpaste or dippers or just about anything in order for men to purchase the items they advertise, and it works.  Paul says that we have to learn how to control our old nature.  Paul writes the following to the Corinthians “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!”  (1 Cor. 6:13, 15).”  When we read these verses we may tend to think that there must have been advertisements in Paul’s days that he was telling the Corinthians to stay away from.  Sexual pleasure is a gift from the Lord used to have children and also to bring pleasure to a man and his wife.  Since the fall that is spoken of in Genesis chapter three all persons ended up with a sinful nature, for God told Adam and Eve that when they would eat of the tree He told them not to eat from that they would die.  They died spiritually right away, and physically latter on and the man passes on this sinful nature to he children.  When Jesus came to pay for our sins and we accept His forgiveness and make Him our Savior and Lord through faith then we receive a new nature and as we have spoken of here this new nature goes against the old nature.  The old nature always wants to do wrong, while the new nature always wants to do right.  The old nature is described as the flesh and what Paul is writing about in verse four is that we need to control the flesh and live a life in sanctification and honor as we learn to control the old nature.  I heard a story of an Indian who received Christ as Savior and Lord and the person who led him to the Savior as him how he was doing in his walk with the Lord.  The Indian said that he had two dogs in him fighting, a white one who wanted to do good, and a black one who wanted to do wrong.  He was asked which one was winning, and the Indian said the one who I say sic-um to. We have the same choice in our walk with the Lord, a walk that Paul says we need to “excel still more.”

            John MacArthur writes “In several of his other letters, the apostle Paul made it crystal clear that in order to control their bodies believes must rely on the Hoy Spirit.  ‘Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh’ (Gal 5:16).  The key to walking in the Spirit is being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:17-18), and the key to being filled with the Spirit is for believers to let God’s Word dwell within them (Col. 3:16; cf. Pss. 19:7-11; 119:11, 105).  They must sincerely read, study and apply Scripture so that it saturates their lives and allows them to yield complete control to the Holy Spirit.

            “No Christian should every ask how far his or her moral behavior can depart from God’s standard and still avoid sin.  Rather, believers should strive to be utterly separate from immorality so that they can honor their bodies, which belong to God, and use them to glorify Jesus Christ, the Head of the church.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is my desire to be able to possess my body in sanctification and honor as Paul writes here.  It is a daily battle, but I do have the Holy Spirit living in me to show me what His Word says and to empower me to live a life that is pleasing to Him.  I have to fight the god fight.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Fight the good fight and if I fall to remember that the successful Christian life is a series of new beginnings, and to get up and continue to fight the good fight by the help of the Holy Spirit.

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:  “John” (John 1:1).

Today’s Bible question:  “Where did Abram go during a famine?”

Answer in our next SD.  6/7/2014 10:36 AM