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 31st 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
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