Intro to Eph. 5:18b-21

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/19/2019 9:52 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus:  Intro to Eph. 5:18b-21

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:18b-21

 

            Message of the verses:  “but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            On my other blog I was looking again at Psalm 137, a Psalm of remembering and in the first part of the Psalm we read about some of the children of Israel who were captive in Babylon at that time they were asked to play their harps and sing songs about Israel.  They refused to do so.  Now as we look at verse 19 of Eph. 5 we see that as believers we are to sing psalms and hymns making melody with our hearts to the Lord.  We can do this because we have been forgiven all of our sins, and we can do this because our home is in heaven as we are just spending our time here on earth for a very short time in order to do what the Lord has planned for us to do for His glory, and that is worth singing about.

 

            After the Lord’s command to be “filled with the Spirit”, Paul gave a summary of the consequences of obedience to that command.  The consequences are given in verses 19-21 which is what we will be looking at as me move through the outline from John MacArthur’s 20^th chapter of his commentary in which he names this chapter “Be Filled with the Spirit—part 2.

 

            MacArthur writes “Consequences of the Spirit-filled life (which greatly enrich our understanding of its nature) are mentioned throughout the remainder of the epistle, and in these verses we are given three of the most significant ones:  singing, giving thanks, and submission.  When God’s Spirit controls us he will put a song in our own hearts and on our lips, give us thankfulness to God, and make us submissive to others.  The first initially inward, the second upward, and the third outward.  The filling of the Holy Spirit makes us rightly related to ourselves, to God, and to others.”

 

The Consequence with ourselves:  Singing.  “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the lord” (Eph. 5:19).

 

            I may have mentioned in an earlier SD that my wife and I attended a conference for about three days back in October of 1980 in which I made some decisions that have affected my walk with the Lord.  The speaker desired for believers to read their Bible each and every day and asked those who wanted to, to make a vow to the Lord to read their Bible at least five minutes a day.  I did this and then after that I made a vow to pray at least five minutes a day.  I realize that this was a rather short time period, yet it did get me into the Word of God and in prayer each and every day.  Another thing that the speaker wanted us to do was to memorize Scripture and to meditate on that Scripture some much that the Lord would give us a song from that portion of Scripture that we put to memory.  I began to memorize the first Psalm and true to the speakers word the Lord gave me a song, and then later on after I gave the tune to a lady in our church she wrote music to it and actually played it one Sunday evening.  I believe that this is what Paul might have been writing about in this verse.

 

            It seems like the Spirit-filled life’s first consequence would be more than making music as this is not a really big mountain-moving showing of faith, or an ecstatic spiritual experience, a dynamic speaking ability, or any other things like that, but first He wants us to simply have a heart that sings.  MacArthur writes, “When a believer walks in the Spirit, he has an inside joy that manifests itself in music.  God puts music in the souls and then on the lips of His children who walk in obedience.” 

 

            I will close with the following.  A couple of weeks ago our church celebrated our senior Pastor and his wives (pastor to the seniors) 50 years of ministry to the Lord.  Our senior pastor is rather short but one can always know when he is around for he constantly whistles, and he does this because he is happy.  I have to believe that Pastor Golden is filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Those earlier days of being a believer in Christ were very special, especially composing a short little song to Psalm one. 

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to continue to teach me to be humble, and to rely on Him, and to fill me with His Spirit.

 

Today’s quotation is from David Jeremiah who states “Wisdom is development wisdom is discipline wisdom is discernment wisdom is discretion wisdom is depth of understanding wisdom is devotion to God.”

 

7/19/2019 10:29 AM