SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/27/2018 10:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT- “Intro to ‘Unity of the Body’”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
2:11-22
Message of the
verses: In today’s SD we will be
looking at the first part of the introduction to Ephesians 2:11-22 which are
the remaining verses in this second chapter of Ephesians. John MacArthur entitles this seventh chapter
of his commentary on Ephesians “The Unity of the Body.”
As we begin this section I want to talk about barriers,
or I suppose another word that can be used is predigest for when a person is
predigest against another person or group of people then they will build a wall
against that group of people. As we look
at the situation that we see in the Middle East today we can see a good example
of this as many of the nations that surround the nation of Israel want to
destroy Israel, and the reason is because they hate Israel. This has been an ongoing problem every since
Israel began as a family way back when God called Abram to be the father of
Israel. Abram and his wife Sarah could
not have children for a long time and so Sarah talked Abram into having a child
with her maid servant whom they had gotten when they went to Egypt, which both
things were displeasing to the Lord.
Sarah did not like the child very much even though according to the
times that they lived in was actually her child. It was probably around 13 years later that
Abram and Sarah had their own child, Isaac, and after that Sarah kicked Hagar
and Ishmael out of their tent. God told
Hagar that her son Ishmael would begin a nation because he had come from the
loins of Abraham. Just like Jacob
Ishmael had 12 sons and these are the ancestors of the Arab nations that hate
Israel even to this day.
I wanted to give this as an example of what we will be
studying about as we come to these remaining verses in this second chapter of
Ephesians because this will rear its ugly head as the church begins and Jews
and Gentiles will be in the same local churches.
John MacArthur quotes from Sir Philip Gibbs book “The
Cross of Peace” in his commentary: “The
problem of fences has grown to be one of the most acute that the world must
face. Today there are all sorts of
zig-zag and criss-crossing fences running through the races and peoples of the
world. Modern progress has made the world a neighborhood and God has given us
the task of making it a brotherhood. In
these days of dividing walls of race and class we must shake the earth anew
with the message of Christ, in whom there is neither bond nor free, Jew nor
Greek, Scythian nor Barbarian, but all are one.”
God
has always disliked disunity and although it has been a while ago when we looked
at the gospel of John we saw that in the 17th chapter, Jesus
Christ’s High Priestly Prayer, that He prayed for unity in that prayer. “11 "I am no
longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I
come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You
have given Me, that they
may be one even as We are.” “21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me
and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that
You sent Me.” “22 "The glory which
You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in
unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even
as You have loved Me.”
As
we can see from our Lord’s prayer in John 17 it was His desire for the church
to be one, and yet when we look at the church today it may seem that this
prayer has not been answered, and yet I think that it has been answered in that
once a person becomes a believer that they are one in Christ as Paul spoke of
in the first chapter of Ephesians. I
mentioned to the head of our deacon board at the church that I attend that I
had begun to pray for our Pastors, deacons, and also for our congregation for
unity even though at this time there was no problem with disunity that I could
see, and he told me that he also was praying for this so that our church could
continue to move forward for the cause of Christ as Jesus was praying for in
John 17. I want to mention one more time
that disunity is a heartache for God.
Jesus prayer will be answered for the reason that He always prayed
according to His Father’s will.
We
will continue to talk about this subject in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Faithfulness” (1 Corinthians
4:2).
Today’s Bible question: “How soon does James 5:8 indicate the coming
of the Lord is?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/27/2018 11:32 AM
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