SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/19/2019 9:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Right Commitment
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
6:5-8
Message of the verses: “5 Slaves, be
obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and
trembling, in the
sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but
as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 With good will
render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good
thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or
free.”
John
MacArthur writes “The fourth qualification for proper submission to masters, or
employers, is that of ‘sincerity of heart.’
It is not hypocritical and superficial but genuine and detailed.
“Paul
told the Thessalonian believers to ‘excel still more, and to make it your
ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with
your hands, just as we commanded you; so that you may behave properly toward
outsiders and not be in any need’ (1 Thes. 4:10-12). The idea is to do well
then with the work we are assigned to do, without complaining, bragging,
criticizing the work of others, or in any other way being disruptive.”
The Right Motive:
I have mentioned that in everything we do we are to
bring glory to God, as seen in the Westminster Catechism where we read that we
are to bring glory to God in all we do and enjoy the Lord forever. This includes the work that we do in order to
make a living, and also the work that we do for the Lord in things like our
giving to the Lord, are devotional time with the Lord, or perhaps our ministries
like teaching a Bible study or Sunday school class, it is all to be done to the
glory of God. I think at times believers
can seem to think about their work in making a living as a time that is
different from our time in worshiping the Lord, however worshiping the Lord is
24/7/365, and this includes your work to make a living.
God
does not call every believer into preaching the Word as Pastors, but as we saw
in the quote above from John MacArthur quoting Paul’s letter to the
Thessalonians we can see that believers are to work at a job, and not just sit
around and wait for the Lord to return which is what some of those
Thessalonians were doing. Doing that
does not bring glory to the Lord.
Now
we have one more sub-section to do, which will take a bit longer to complete
and so we will wait until tomorrow, Lord willing, to do that.
Quotation from Love in Action: “The church needs to be a place where we can
be built up and not beat up. The
instruction (rather, the command) to encourage one another is found five times
in the New Testament. It’s addressed to
all believers. It is not
conditional. It is not optional. It’s a command!”
9/19/2019 9:35 AM
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