SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/21/2019 11:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The Right
Diligence”
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.”
We
begin the last sub-section, “The Right Diligence” in our SD for today; this
comes under the main section of “The Submission of Employees” that we have been
looking at since the 14th of September.
We
have been mentioning that since Ephesians 5:18 where we are told that believers
are to be filled with the Holy Spirit that we have been looking at subjects
that believers should be filled with the Holy Spirit, subjects, in my opinion,
where it is the most important to be filled with the Holy Spirit like in
marriage, and dealing with children and not being an employee, and then to be
an employer which is the next main section we are to look at.
As
believers who are employees we are not to work “by way of eyeservice, as
men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the
heart.” We know as believers that we are
to do everything in our lives to bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that
includes being a Spirit filled employee.
Paul
writes in verse seven “with good will render service, as to the Lord, and not
to men” and this repeats and reinforces what Paul has just said. “With good will’ express the attitude of the worker
who does not need prompting or compelling.
When a Christian is where God wants him to be and is obedient to ‘render
service, as to the Lord,’ that is the most challenging, productive, and
rewarding place to be.” (MacArthur)
I
will close this section with another quote from MacArthur and this one tells a
story.
“The story is told of an elderly
missionary couple who were returning home on a ship after many years of
sacrificial service in Africa. On the
same ship was Theodore Roosevelt, who had just completed a highly successful
big game hunt. As the ship docked in New
Your harbor, thousands of well-wishers and dozens of reporters lined the pier
to welcome Roosevelt home. But not a
single person was there to welcome the missionaries. As the couple rode to a hotel in a taxi, the
man complained to his wife, ‘It just doesn’t seem right. We give forty years of our lives to Jesus
Christ to win souls in Africa, and nobody knows or cares when we return. Yet the president goes over there for a few
weeks to kill some animals and the whole world takes notice.’ But as they prayed together that night before
retiring, the Lord seemed to say to them, ‘Do you know why you haven’t received
your reward yet, My children? It is
because you are not home yet.” I have to
say that this story is similar to another story that MacArthur told in this
commentary or perhaps I heard it someplace else, but the difference was that it
was not the President on the ship, but an ambassador, and it was the wife who
was complaining to which the husband replied that they weren’t home yet.
Quotation from “Love in Action:”
For I say, through the grace given to
me,
to everyone who is among you, not to
think of
himself more highly than he ought to
think, but
to think soberly, as God has dealt to
each one a measure
of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but
all
the members do not have the same
function, so we, being many,
are one body in Christ, and individually
members of one another. Having
then gifts differing according to the
grace that is given to us, let us
use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to
our
faith; or ministry, let us use it in our
ministering;
he who teaches, in teaching; he who
exhorts,
in exhortation; he who give, with liberally;
he who leads, with diligence; he who
shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Romans
12:3-8
9/21/2019 11:43 AM
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