United in God's Family (Eph 2:19b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/14/2019 12:11 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                          Focus:  United in God’s Family

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 2:19b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and are of God’s household.”

 

            I mentioned in our last SD that we will begin to look at the sub-sections under the heading of “Closing Summary,” and that once we are done with all of these sub-sections we will have completed our study of the second chapter of Ephesians.

 

            In the first part of verse nineteen we learned that once a person becomes a believer then they are a part of His divine kingdom, and if that were not enough, God’s gracious work that is in Christ, draws us even closer and makes us members of God’s household, which is seen in our short half verse for today.  John MacArthur makes this wonderful point as he writes “Because we have identified ourselves with His Son by faith, God now sees us and treats us exactly as He sees and treats His Son—with infinite love.  Because the Father cannot give anything but His best to the Son, He cannot give anything but His best to those who are in His Son.  ‘Both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father,’ the writer of Hebrews tells us, ‘for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren…Christ was faithful as a Son over His house whose we are’ (2:11; 3:6; Rom 8:17).”

 

            When we think about heavenly citizenship and then family membership, they are not distinct roles or positions but they are simply different views of the same reality, because every kingdom citizen is a family member and every family is a kingdom citizen.

 

            The following quote from MacArthur speaks again to unity even though it is not mentioned:  “If believers have no distinctions before God, they should have no distinctions among themselves.  We are fellow citizens and fellow family members, equal in every spiritual way before God.  If God accepts each one of us, how can we not accept each other?”  That is a great question, and the answer is that we need to accept each other.

 

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Troas” (Acts 20:6-11).

 

Today’s Bible question:  “Who was spokesman for the apostles on the day of Pentecost?”

 

Answer in our next SD.

 

1/14/2019 12:26 AM