SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/22/2019 9:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “Ignorant of God’s Truth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
4:17-19
Message of the verses: “17 This I say
therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as
the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in
their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance
that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having
become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of
every kind of impurity with greediness.”
I
promised to quote from Leroy Auden of the University of Chicago who has
written: “We hide a restless lion under
a cardboard box, for while we may use other terms than guilt to describe this
turbulence in our souls, the fact remains that all is not right within us” MacArthur goes on to write “By one way or
another—by psychological game playing, rationalization, self-justification,
transferring the blame, or by denying sin and eliminating morality—men try
futilely to get rid of the lion of guilt.
But it will not go away.”
In
our Sunday school class yesterday we were talking about how the Lord Jesus
Christ when He returns to planet earth as seen in Revelation 19, has Satan put
into the abyss at the beginning of chapter so that he will not be allowed to
bother the people of the Millennial kingdom, but today he plays a part in the
blindness of those who refuse to believe and Paul states why in 2 Cor. 4:4 “in
whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so
that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God.” People today who are
unbelievers refuse to see Christ because they refuse to see God, and their
refusal is readily confirmed and reinforced by the god of this world as seen in
the above verse.
When our Lord was on earth ministering to the Jewish
people they had the greatest opportunity to hear and see God incarnate do many
wonderful miracles like raising the dead, feeding thousands of people from
small amounts of food, preach and teach the gospel to them, and yet what
happened to most of them can be seen in John’s words written in his gospel
writings where we read “But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet
they were
not believing in Him” (John
12:37). “39
For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 40 "HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE
HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE
WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM” (John 12:39-40).
Because these Jews did not believe, they could not
believe. Revelation 22:1 tells us “Let
the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and let the one who is filthy, still be
filthy.”
MacArthur
concludes: “When men chose to petrify
their hearts by constant rejection of the light (John 12:35-36 ’35 So Jesus
said to them, "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk
while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks
in the darkness does not know where he goes. 36 “While you have the Light,
believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light." These things
Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.’), they became
‘darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the
ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. That is the
unspeakable tragedy of unbelief, the tragedy of the person who makes himself his own god.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: When a person makes himself his own god
he is full of pride, and perhaps someday the Lord will humble some of these
people like He did to me a very long time ago.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I never want
to be proud of the things that the Lord does through me, but just be available
for Him to use me and then praise His name.
Scripture reference for our last
quotation comes from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work.”
4/22/2019 9:59 AM
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