SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/22/2020 9:55 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Right Understanding of God’s
Will”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
6:10b
Message of the verse: “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”
In
today’s SD we will begin to look at the third distinct aspect of God’s will,
and Lord willing, we will finish this up in our next SD as we again look at
MacArthur’s book “Jesus ’Pattern of Prayer,” as this has much more detail in it
and will help us better understand this third point.
This
third distinct aspect of God’s will can be called God’s will of command, and this is only for those
who are His children, for they are the only ones who can obey Him completely
and immediately with a willing heart.
Paul writes in Romans 6:16-18 the following “16 Do you not know that when you present
yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one
whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in
righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient
from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin,
you became slaves of righteousness.”
MacArthur
writes “God’s will of purpose embraces the ultimate end of this world, Christ’s
second coming and the setting up of His eternal kingdom. His will of desire embraces conversion; and His will of command embraces
the commitment and obedience of His children.”
We
will look more at this in our next SD, but the question here is what is the
great enemy of God’s will? Of course
that has to be pride, for it was pride that caused Lucifer to fall as described
in the 14th chapter of Isaiah.
Pride causes unbelievers to reject God and believers to disobey
Him. “For God’s will to be accepted and
to be prayed for in sincerity and with faith, self-will must be forsaken in the
power of the Holy Spirit.” “1 Therefore
I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living
and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service
of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, so
that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and
acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2).
MacArthur
continues “When we pray in faith and in conformity to God’s will, our prayer is
a sanctifying grace that changes our lives dramatically. Prayer is a means of progressive
sanctification. John Hannah said, ‘The end of prayer is not so
much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependence…The call to prayer is a
call to love, submission, and obedience…the avenue of sweet, intimate, and
intense fellowship of the soul with the infinite Creator.’
“In
verses 11-13a Jesus gives three petitions.
The first relates to our physical life and the present (daily bread),
the second to our mental and emotional life and the past (debts), and the third
to our spiritual life and the future (temptation and evil).” 11/22/2020 10:17 AM
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