SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/8/2019 10:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Spiritual
Maturity
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph.
4:13-15a
Message of the verses: “13 until we all
attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a
mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of
Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there
by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men,
by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15
but speaking the truth in love,”
We
are looking at the third result of following God’s pattern for His church which
is spiritual maturity, and that is a maturity “To the measure of the stature
which belongs to the fulness of Christ” which is seen in verse 13. Romans 8:29 gives us what God’s desire for
church is that every believer, without exception will “become conformed
to the image of His Son.” Jesus Christ
is the only One who we as believers are to be conformed to, and we can only do
that by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we read and study the
Word of God and also to be challenged by good Bible preaching, and I might add
that just as Christ suffered so at times we too will suffer, which also helps
us to become more like Jesus Christ.
John
MacArthur writes “Christians are therefore called to ‘walk in the same manner
as He walked’ (1 John 2:6; cf. Col. 4:12), and He walked in complete and
continual fellowship with and obedience to His Father. To walk as our Lord walked flows from a life
of prayer and of obedience to God’s Word.” (Remember how many times our Lord
would be praying to His Father while He was on earth, and this gives us a
perfect example.) “‘We all, with
unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the
Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3:18). As we grow into
deeper fellowship with Christ, the process of divine sanctification through His
Holy Spirit changes us more and more into His image, from one level of glory to
the next. The agent of spiritual
maturity, as well as of every other aspect of godly living, is God’s own Spirit—apart from whom
the sincerest prayer has no effectiveness (Rom. 8:26), and even God’s own Word
has no power (John 14:26; 16:13; 1 John 2:20).”
I believe that what he is saying here is that we cannot do the Christian
life on our own, for if we could then how would that bring glory to the Lord
who is the One who causes us to grow in Him.
He
goes on to explain “It is obvious that believers, all of whom have unredeemed
flesh (Rom. 7:14; 8:23), cannot in this life fully and perfectly attain the
‘measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.’ But they must and can reach a degree of
maturity that pleases and glorifies the Lord.
The goal of Paul’s ministry to believers was their maturity, as indicated
by his labors to ‘present every man complete (teleios, measure) in Christ’ (Col. 1:28-29; cf. Phil. 3:14-15).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Maturity has and should be one of my goals as
a believer in Jesus Christ, and that means that I am not to stop, for that
means I am going backwards, but to continue to seed maturity in my Savior and
Lord each and every day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I have spoken about humility most every day
in these Spiritual Diaries for this year of 2019, and the Lord has brought
different things into my life which indicates to me that this surely is His
will for me to think about and work on this year. In today’s quotation I see another example of
this.
Today’s quotation and this one is from
Jonathan Edwards “Nothing sets a person so much out of the Devil’s reach as
humility.”
4/8/2019 10:37 AM
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