SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/23/2018 9:56 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Guarantee of Our Inheritance
Bible Reading & Mediation Reference: Eph.
1:13b-14a
Message of the
verses: “you were sealed in Him with
the Holly Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance.”
“The Guarantee of Our Inheritance” is the second main
section in the outline from John MacArthur’s commentary. In this second main point we will find two
sub-sections, and in today’s SD we want to look at the introduction and then
perhaps begin to look at the first sub-section “God’s Seal.”
In the world that we live in we would like guarantees
when it comes to things in our life.
However even if we are given a guarantee from men, and even if they
swear to it, or take an oath to fulfill the agreement, or even give us their
assurance that what they will do will happen it does not always happen for
various reasons, and some of those reasons are outright lies.
When we look at God’s Word we know for sure that what He
says He will do because God cannot lie.
As MacArthur writes “His graciousness He makes His promises even more
certain—if that were possible—by giving us His own guarantees. Here the Lord guarantees His promises with
His seal and with His pledge. This is
reminiscent of Hebrews 6:13-18, in which God gives His promise of blessing and
then confirms it with an oath to provide what the Holy Spirit calls ‘strong
encouragement’ (v. 18) to all who hope in Christ.” I think that we will take the time to look at
Hebrews 6:13-18 at this time:
“13
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by
Himself, 14 saying, "I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY
MULTIPLY YOU." 15 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the
promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them
an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17 In the same
way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the
unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things
in which it is impossible
for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement
to take hold of the hope set before us.”
We will now begin looking at the first sub-section “God’s Seal.”
As
we looked at the passage from Hebrews we saw that the writer of Hebrews was
writing at first about Abraham, and the promises that God gave to Abraham. Now we know that in Abraham’s life time he
did not receive the promises that God gave to him, and many of those promises
have yet to be fulfilled, but we know that because God was the One who gave
those promises that they will one day all be fulfilled. In the same way when we become a believer in
Jesus Christ, when we are born from above that all of the promises that God
gives to believers will not be fulfilled while we are on this earth in this
human body we occupy. Peter tells us in
1 Peter 1:3-4 “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born
again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled
and will not fade away, reserved
in heaven for you.” The
highlighted portion is what we want to focus in on for our purposes today in
looking at many of the promises that God has given to us which will be
fulfilled for us “in heaven.” I suppose
that because of this truth that there are times when we sort of loose faith,
and even think that these promises of our inheritance will not ever be
fulfilled, but that is not the case as all of the inheritance we have that we
have been learning about will all be fulfilled.
MacArthur writes “While we are still in this life our redemption is not
complete, because we still await ‘the redemption of our body’ (Rom. 8:23). Because we have not yet received full
possession of our inheritance, we may question its reality or at least its
greatness.”
We
can see from the first portion of our verse today the following items which
gives us hope “you were sealed in Him
with the Holly Spirit of promise.” Every
believer, at the moment of His salvation has been given the Person of the Holy
Spirit of God as Paul declares in Romans 8:9 “However,
you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells
in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to
Him.” Notice that only those who
truly have been born-again are given the Holy Spirit. This is an incredible to think that every
believer has the Holy Spirit making them “the temple of the Holy Spirit who is
in [him]” as seen in 1 Corinthians 6:19.
We
will continue looking at this amazing truth in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am
thankful for those many promises that have to do with my salvation that I will
receive as an inheritance when I hopefully meet the Lord in the air (1 Thes.
3:13-18).
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Holy Spirit of God to
guide me, especially as I study His Word, so that He can show me the truths
that He wants me to see so I can learn by them and also pass them onto those
who read my blogs and who are in my Sunday school class.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “He raised him from the dead” (2 Kings
4:18-37).
Today’s Bible question: “What does James 4:17 call the circumstances
of ‘Knowing to do good and doing it not’?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/23/2018 10:46 AM
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