SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/10/2014 9:28 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Shame
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2
Thessalonians 3:14
Message of the
verses: “14 If anyone does not obey
our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not
associate with him, so that he will be put to shame.”
Just a little reminder of what we are looking at from
verses 6-15 of 2 Thessalonians chapter three.
John MacArthur writes “Since this was the third time that Paul had to
deal with this issue (3:10; 1 Thess. 4:11-2), he bluntly and directly confronts
those who stubbornly refused to work.
This passage contains six incentives to motivate those sinning to repent
and get to work: disfellowship, example,
survival, harmony, shame and love.” We
are looking at the fifth of these incentives in today’s SD, and by God’s grace
we will look at the last one, love, in our next SD. I do want to make a change in the NT book
that we will be looking at next year, and this will take longer than a year to
finish, but it seems to me that the Lord has impressed on my heart to look
again at the book of Revelations. I have
already posted my first study on Revelations on my blog, but I look forward to
studying the wonderful book again. The
times we are living in seem to have something to do with why I wish to look at
it again. I guess Colossians will have
to wait for a while for me to look at.
Every book that I look at in the NT will be a second time studying it,
but remember God’s Word is something we can study again and again and never
exhaust it. I have heard that when we
get to heaven we will continue to study God’s Word and this would not surprise
me one bit.
We have spoken
about the steps of discipline that is found in Matthew eighteen in earlier
SD’s, and the verse we are looking at today seems to me, is the last step in
this process without turning the person or persons over to Satan as Paul wrote
in his first letter to the Corinthians.
As we will learn tomorrow all of these steps are done in love in order
to have the person repent.
As we look at this verse we see the words “do not
associate with” in it and John MacArthur write the following about these
words: “The strong double compound verb sunanamignumi)
associate with) literally means, ‘to mix up together with.’ The church individually and collectively was
to withdraw fellowship from such persons and avoid them. Surely they were not to participate in the
love feast, since feeding them a meal would condom and perpetuate their
indolent behavior. The pressure of
isolation was to be brought to bear on them to produce repentance.” It is hard on a person to not have
fellowship with other believers, who hold so much in common, so this is a great
way to show them the error of their ways and to get them to repent and then go
to work. What this does to the sinners
is to put them to shame. A man
especially has much difficulty in not being able to provide for his family, as
least that should be their attitude.
Unfortunately there are many men living in our society who not only do
not provide for their family, but don’t even live in the same house with them
for they are out living on the streets looking for other women to bare children
for them. This is the sad result of not
following the Biblical principles that Paul is writing of in this section of
Scripture.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: All sin is
shameful to commit, at least it should be.
There are times when sin seems to have control of me in certain areas and
I need the grace of God to show me how to “set my mind on things above, and not
on the things that are on earth.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: “Set your mind on the things above, not on
the things that are on earth (Col. 3:2).”
Memory verses for the week: 2 Peter 1:1-4.
1 Simon Peter, a
bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have a faith of the same
kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that His divine power has
granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true
knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His
precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of
the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The place of the skull” (Mark
15:22).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘Lord by this time
he stinketh: for he has been dead four days’.”
Answer in our next SD.
12/10/2014 10:08 AM
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