SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/4/2018 10:25 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1
“Understanding the Greatness of God’s Plan”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 1:18
Message of the verses: “18 I pray that
the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the
hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
saints,” “18 that you may receive that inner illumination of the spirit which
will make you realize how great is the hope to which he is calling you—the
magnificence and splendor of the inheritance promised to Christians—(Philips).”
Notice
that in the NASB the words “I pray that” are in italics meaning that they were
not there in the original text, while in the Philips paraphrased Bible it just
begins without adding those words. I
suppose that the scholars who wrote the NASB95 decided that Paul was still
praying or perhaps they just wanted to reinforce that Paul’s prayer continued.
As
we begin this SD we want to talk a bit about the “heart.” The Greek word for heart is “kardia,” and in
the ancients, the Hebrews, Greeks, and many other ancient cultures they
considered the heart to be the center of knowledge, understanding, thinking and
wisdom. The New Testament uses the word
heart in the same way as the heart was considered to be the seat of the mind
and will, and it could be
taught what the brain could never know.
John MacArthur writes the following that is very near and dear to my
heart when he says “Emotions and feelings were associated with the intestines,
or bowels (Greek splanchnon; cf. Acts
1:18, where the term clearly refers to the physical organs, with Col. 3:12;
Philem. 7, 12, 20; and 1 John 3:17, where it refers to affection and feelings).”
One
of the problems in the church today which was also a problem at the beginning
of the church age is that some believers relied on their feelings, rather than
on what God declared to be right. The
following section from 2 Cor. 6:11-13 shows how this problem was in that
church: “11 Our mouth has spoken freely
to you, O Corinthians, our heart [kardia]
is opened wide. 12 You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your
own affections [spanchnon]. 13 Now in
a like exchange-I speak as to children-open wide to us also.” John MacArthur helps us understand this by
writing “The apostle said, in effect, ‘I can’t take God’s truth from my mind
and give it to your minds, because your emotions get in the way.’ Instead of their emotions being controlled by
God’s truth, their emotions distorted their understanding of His truth.”
Now
with this as a background of what we are looking at in Ephesians 1:18 we see
that Paul therefore prays for the minds of those in the Ephesian church, and
also all who were and still are reading this letter. He prays for their minds to be enlightened as
emotions have a significant place in the Christian life, but they are reliable
only as they are guided and controlled by God’s truth, and we come to know and
understand that through our minds. This
can be seen in Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching
and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” MacArthur adds “When the Holy Spirit works in
the believer’s mind, He enriches it to understand divine truth that is deep and
profound, and then relates that truth to life—including those aspects of life
that involve our emotions.” What this
section kind of reminds me of is the longest Psalm, (119), as in that Psalm
there is reference to the Word of God in all but three of its 176 verses, and
it is the Word of God that the Holy Spirit uses to teach us.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: “2Ti 2:15 Study to show yourself approved to
God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord, through His Holy Spirit, to
teach me from His Word each day as I study it, so that I will rely on the
things that He teaches me rather than any emotional surge that I get that may
not have anything to do with His Word.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Levi” (Exodus 2:1).
Today’s Bible question: “How many years before the writing of 2 Corinthians
was a man caught up into the third heaven?”
(Use your concordance)
Answer in our next SD.
12/4/2018 11:37 AM
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