SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/15/2019 11:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “From
Natural Vices to Supernatural Virtues”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 4:31-32
Message of the verses: “31 Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you,
along with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving
each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”
As
I look at these two verses and then begin to read over some of the commentaries
that uses to help me to understand them my thoughts are that this is “toe
stomping time.” This is the final charge
that Paul gives to those he is writing to and it seems that is kind of a
summary of the other changes that we have looked at.
As we look back when man first sinned we
see that because of man’s disobedient to God that man died spiritually at the
time when sin occurred in the hearts of Adam and Eve and then later on they
died physically too, something that would be seen in the life of Adam and Eve
when Cain killed Able. So what we have
with all people born from the loins of Adam is that they are all sinners, and
thus we sin because we are sinners. When
a person is born from above through what Jesus Christ did for them on the cross
they are forgiven of all sins, past present and future, however as we have been
mentioning we have three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil who all
try to cause believers to continue to sin, and so in this section from
Ephesians chapter four we have been learning that we are not to follow the old
way of life in things like lying, unrighteous anger, stealing, unwholesome
words, and natural vices. Paul desires
for believers to stop following these old vices and to follow the new life that
God has given to us because of what Christ has done for us. MacArthur writes “Mans natural tendency is to
sin, and the natural tendency of sin is to grow into greater sin. And a Christian’s sin will grow just like
that of an unbeliever. If not checked,
our inner sins of ‘bitterness and wrath and anger’ will inevitably lead to the
outward sins of ‘clamor, slander,’ and other such manifestation of ‘malice.’”
As
I look at the commentary of Dr. Warren Wiersbe he writes “These verses (30-32)
warn us against several sins of the attitude and amplify what Paul wrote about
anger. Bitterness refers to a settled hostility that poisons the whole
inner man. Somebody does something we do
not like, so we harbor ill will against him.
‘Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them’ (Col.
3:19). Bitterness leads to wrath, which is the explosion on the
outside of the feelings on the inside.
Wrath and anger often lead to brawling (clamor) or blasphemy (evil
speaking). The first is fighting with
fists, the second is fighting words. It
is difficult to believe that Christians would act this way, but they do, and
this is why Paul warned us, ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity’ (Ps. 133:1).”
In
our next SD I want to look more closely at some of these words like bitterness,
anger and wrath as John MacArthur is good at helping us understand the Greek,
and the definition of these words. I
also want to quote a heart moving story from the pen of Warren Wiersbe about
how bitterness helped to ruin the life of a married couple.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Bitterness is like a cancer that can cause
much pain if not dealt with, and so I desire for the Lord to search my heart to
see if there is any bitterness I need to confess to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: When I think of humility I think about how
learning it will help me to overcome any bitterness that I could be holding on
to. Humility will help me to trust the
Lord in situations where bitterness could happen.
Quotation for today is from David
Jeremiah who states “God’s part is to protect us by giving us wisdom. Our part is to want to be protected by
seeking it.”
5/15/2019 12:09 PM
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