SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/21/2019 10:33 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Feet Shod with the Gospel”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
6:15
Message of the
verse: “and
your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace” (HCSD).
In our last SD we looked at briefly
what the Roman soldier wore on his feet and in today’s SD we want to focus in
more on how the shoes of the Gospel of Peace will work for the Christian as
they are equally important in the believer’s warfare against the schemes of the
devil. John MacArthur writes “If he has
carefully girded his loins with truth and put on the breastplate of
righteousness, but does not properly shod his feet with the preparation of the
gospel of peace, he is destined to stumble, fall, and suffer many defeats.
“Hetoimasia
(‘preparation’) has the general meaning of readiness. In Titus 3:1 Paul uses the term to exhort
believers ‘to be ready for every good deed.’ A good pair of boots allows the
soldier to be ready to march, climb, fight, or do whatever else is
necessary. Christ demands the same
readiness of His people.”
We can see from the book of Romans
in 10:15 a quotation from Isaiah 52:7 “How lovely (or beautiful) on the
mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And
brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to
Zion, "Your God reigns!’” Paul
quoted this verse in the context of preaching the gospel, and so many
commentators also interpret Ephesians 6:15 as a reference to preaching. However in Ephesians 6:15 Paul is not talking
about preaching or about teaching but he is talking about fighting spiritual
battles. Paul is not talking about
traveling about but he is talking in our verse in Ephesians about standing firm as seen
in verses 11, 13, and 14. Paul is not
talking about evangelizing the lost in this section but fighting against the devil.
We
see in this passage that “the gospel of peace” is referring to the good news that believers are at peace with
God. We know that this is not
true of the unsaved person as that person is helpless, ungodly, sinful, and an
enemy of God as seen in Romans 5:6-10.
However the saved person is reconciled to God through faith in His Son
as seen in verses 10-11 of Romans 5. Let
us look for a moment at Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul here proclaims that believers have peace
with God because we have
been justified by faith, and again unbelievers do not have this
peace. Let us look at two verses from
Colossians (1:21-22): “21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged
in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now
reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present
you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”
MacArthur
writes “The gospel of
peace is the marvelous truth that in Christ we are now at peace with God and
are one with Him. Therefore, when
our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, we stand in the
confidence of God’s love for us, His union with us, and His commitment to fight
for us.”
Lord
willing, in our next SD we will quote a fairly long paragraph from John MacArthur’s
commentary on different battles that were fought in the OT by Israel when
humaningly speaking the odds were so far against them, but God gave victory to
them and this is something that we can learn from as we fight against an
overwhelming foe in our lives today.
At
this point in time I want to again talk about humility as I have been talking
about it for this entire year. Let me
set the stage before I do this. A couple
of weeks ago my wife had a book lying on the bed, a book entitled “The Strategy
of Satan” that was written by Warren Wiersbe sometime in the 1979. I had read this book and also listened to it
on audio version of the book some years ago.
I began to read it again and also listen to it in the audio format and
it did not take me long to realize that this was something that God wanted me
to study again. I told our Pastor about
this and even bought one for him and it is my prayer that the Spirit of God
will show Him that our entire church needs to understand what the strategy of
Satan is against believers. I say this
that it is my prayer that this will happen, but I realize that this is
something that the Spirit of God will have to do if it is His will. It was early this morning I read in this book
some things about humility that I desire to quote at this time as it was to me
something that I have desired to learn since January 1st of this
year, so perhaps that God was teaching me patience too, and if He was it was
worth the wait.
Dr.
Wiersbe is talking about Pride in this third chapter of his book, and we have
stated that pride is the opposite of humility, and pride is something that
Satan uses against believers. It was pride
that Satan had which caused him to fall as seen in Isaiah chapter 14 when we
see the five famous “I will” statements that Lucifer made which turned him into
an enemy of God who is now called Satan.
It was pride that Satan used on David to number the people in Israel
where in the end 70,000 people were killed because of David’s pride to which he
told the Lord that he had sinned “GREATLY.”
Dr. Wiersbe quotes Romans 12:1-2 and then later on he will quote the
12:3 a verse that has been on my prayer list for me since the first of the
year. We will look at what he says about
Romans 12:1-2 after I quote those verses:
“1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (AV).
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “The Holy Spirit can work in your life when your body, mind, and
will are yielded to Him.
“But
these are the very areas which Satan wants to attack! He wants to attack your body with suffering to make you impatient with God’s will. He wants to attack your mind with lies to make you ignorant of God’s will. And he wants to attack your will with pride to make you independent of God’s
will.
If
you yield these three areas of your life daily
to the Spirit of God, then the Spirit will empower you to defeat the
devil. As the Spirit of grace, He will
give grace to your body so that you will be able to endure suffering to the
glory of God. As the Spirit of wisdom,
He will teach you God’s Word and bring it to your mind when Satan attacks with
his lies. And as the Spirit of power, He
will empower your will to say ‘No!’ to pride.
The Holy Spirit will work in you and through you to defeat the wicked
one.
“Remember
in the battle against Satan, the only way to conquer is to surrender—surrender
to God.”
“Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the
humble." 7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from
you” (NKJV).”
I
want to quote more from this book by Dr. Wiersbe, but I think that I will wait
until my next SD, Lord willing. I have
to say that all of this studying on humility seems to go along at this time
with what we are looking at in Ephesians chapter six.
Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”
that goes with Acts 11:24.
“Barnabas was not just a backslapping
stroker, he was a sincere man of God. He was good in the sense that he was
generous and he was kind. He wasn’t
passive about his goodness; his virtue was active. He proactively involved himself in the lives
of others. It’s not overstating it to
say that Barnabas was good in the sense that God is good. His goodness came from a special
relationship—he was full of the Holy Spirit who controlled him. And Barnabas was filled with faith—faith in
God and faithfulness in representing God.”
10/21/2019 12:01 PM
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