SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/21/2019 9:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Intro to “The Manner of Love”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:25-31
Message of the verses: “25 Husbands, love
your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water
with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory,
having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and
blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the
church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL
LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL
BECOME ONE FLESH.”
I
mentioned in our last SD as we ended the fifth introduction to Ephesians
5:25-33 that we would begin to look at two different main points which will
then conclude verses 25-33. This was in
the last quotation from John MacArthur’s commentary as he gave us his outline
to these verses. In today’s SD we want
to look at another introduction, this one on verses 25-31 which speaks of “the
manner of love” and in this section we will find sub-sections entitled
“Sacrificial Love’; “Purifying Love’; ‘Caring Love,; and ‘Unbreakable
Love.” We will begin with just the
introduction to this first main section today and then will look at
“Sacrificial Love” in our next SD, Lord willing.
In
this introduction we will look at the first half of verse 25 “husbands, love
your wives, just as Christ loved the church.”
Verse
21 of Ephesians five states “and be subject to one another in the fear of
Christ.” This verse gives us the
explanation of the mutual submission, and loving your wife is certainly a part
of that mutual submission. The husband’s
primary submission to his wife is through his love for her, and as we read
these verses we see that Paul is clearly telling us that this love is a
boundless love, as seen in the second part of verse 25 which says “just as
Christ also loved the church.” I have
mentioned in earlier SD’s things that I have learned from the 2nd
Psalm, as this Psalm actually goes back to eternity past where the Father’s
desire was to give a bride to the second person of the trinity, the Son. The plan was set in motion for the Son to go
to planet earth, which was not in existence yet, and pay the purchase price for
the bride, which would mean that He would die for the bride that the Father was
giving Him. This tells us that Jesus
Christ loved the church before He brought the church into existence. He chose and also loved His own even “before
the foundation of the world” as seen in Ephesians 1:4, because God’s love is
eternally present, having no past and no future.
It
is very clear that no sinful human being has the capacity to love with the
divine fullness and perfection with which Christ loves, as He forever loves the
Church. John MacArthur writes “However,
because a Christian has Christ’s own nature and Holy Spirit within him, God
thereby provides for husbands to love their wives with a measure of Christ’s
own kind of love. The husband who
submits to the Lord by being filled with His Spirit (v. 18) is able to love his
wife with the same kind of love Jesus has for His own bride, the church. The Lord’s pattern of love for His church is the husband’s pattern of
love for his wife.
“In
this passage Paul mentions four qualities of that divine love that husbands are
to exemplify for their wives. Like the
Lord’s, the husbands love is to be sacrificial, purifying, caring, and unbreakable.” We mentioned these four qualities earlier in
this SD and they are what we will be spending our time looking at, Lord
willing, in the next several days.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Husbands love your wife, Just as Christ loves
the Church which can only be done by being filled with the Holy Spirit.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Jesus Christ humbled Himself in order to come
to planet earth to pay the price for His bride, and I believe that He was
filled with the Spirit in order to accomplish this task, and so I am to be
filled with the Spirit in order to live a humble life so that I can accomplish
the things that God has planned for me in eternity past as seen in Ephesians
2:10.
Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”:
“Pursue
love, and desire spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1).
Let all that
you do be done with love (1 Corinthians 16:14).
Walk…with
all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering,
bearing
with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2).
Walk in
love as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a
Sacrifice
to God (Ephesians 5:2). [Speak] the
truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Put on
Tender
mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering (Colossians 3:12b).
Pursue
righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure
heart
(2
Timothy 2:22b). And let us consider one
another in order to stir up love
And good
works (Hebrew 10:24). My little
children,
Let us
not love in word or in tongue, but in deed
and in
truth (1 John 3:18).
8/21/2019 10:24 AM
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