SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/4/2019 10:19 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Contrast”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 5:8
Message of the verses: “8 for you were
formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”
As
I look at the outline that I am following from John MacArthur’s commentary I
see that there are two sub-points and also an introduction and so we will first
quote from the short introduction and then we will go to first part of the
first sub-point “What we Were.”
“Paul
here contrasts what every believer’s life was like before salvation with what
God intended it is to be like after salvation.
In doing so he simply states what should be obvious: A person who has been saved from sin should
be through with sin and should live as a redeemed and purified child of
God. To illustrate that point the
apostle uses the common biblical figures of ‘darkness’ and ‘light.’
What We Were
Let us begin by looking at two words “were” and then
“formerly.” The word “were” reveals two
important realities, and the first one is “past tense” which indicates a
condition that no longer exists, and then Paul goes on by reinforcing this
truth by using the word “formerly.” I
want to now look at Ephesians 2:1-3 to see what Paul wrote earlier in this
letter which I believe will help us understand more about these words which
show us what we were: “1 And you were
dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now
working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our
flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by
nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
John MacArthur writes “For Christians, both intellectual and moral
‘darkness’ are a thing of the past (cf. 4:17-20). “17 So this I say, 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 under-
standing, 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. 20 But you did not learn Christ in
this way.”
I
am now going to write about the second reason why this is in the past tense by
once again quoting from John MacArthur’s commentary: “Second, the verb is not modified by a pronoun, such as in or of. In other places Scripture
speaks of a person’s being in or out of darkness, but here it says we were…darkness. Before we came to Christ our total
existence—our being as well as our behavior—was characterized by darkness. Their was no other aspect to our spiritual
life than that of darkness. We were
children of darkness and ‘sons of disobedience’ (Eph. 5:6). We were not simply victims of Satan’s system
but were contributors to it. We were
not merely in sin; our very nature was characterized by sin.”
I
have a short story that relates to this highlighted commentary from MacArthur’s
commentary. I was playing golf with a
couple of friends last week and we stopped for a little ice cream afterwards
and I was telling them about some of the things that I did before I became a
believer, things that I will not get into at this point other than saying
something that I did write about a few times on my Spiritual Diaries, and that
is that I had a problem with swearing.
After the Lord saved me in January of 1974 He took that part of my
vocabulary away from me, something that I had promised Him that I would do
after the Lord answered a prayer of mine about getting out of the Army in
1966. As I was thinking about my
conversation that I had with my friends I realized that not only did the Lord
take swearing away from me but He also gave me many things, things that I am
still learning about as I grow in the Lord.
One thing I am convinced of is the truth of what we are studying at this
point and that is that God took me out of the darkness and put me into His
Light, for which I will be eternally thankful for.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Not being in the darkness does not mean that
I don’t sin, but when I do I am very miserable.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue my
quest to learn more about humility.
Bible verse that goes along with Mark
Twain’s commentary from yesterday is Romans 14:19 “Therefore let us pursue the
things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.”
6/4/2019 10:54 AM
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