SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/25/2019 11:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Shield of Faith”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
6:16
Message of the
verse: “in
addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to
extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
I want to go back to
the first flaming missile that Satan shot and that was at Adam and Eve as seen
in the third chapter of Genesis. That
missile was that they should doubt God, and it worked and Satan has been
shooting that same missile at many people ever since. Why not? If it works why change what you are
doing. Every temptation, directly or
indirectly, is the temptation to doubt and distrust God. Satan asked Eve “Did God really say that, are you
sure He said that or did you not hear exactly what He said to you.” Think about this fact that what God told Adam
and Eve was His Word and His Word never changes because He never changes. John MacArthur writes “The purpose of all of
Satan’s missiles, therefore, is to cause believers to forsake their trust in
God, to drive a wedge between the Savior and the saved. He even tempted God’s own Son to distrust Him
in the wilderness—first to distrust His Father’s provision, then to distrust
His protection and His plan (Matt. 4:3-9).
The following are some
of the things that John MacArthur wrote to combat what Satan tries to get
people to do: “Efforts to justify
fornication or adultery in the name of God’s grace—arguing, as some do, that
sex was created by God and that everything He created is good—pervert logic,
contradict God’s Word, and impugn His integrity. Trying to justify marriage to an unbeliever—arguing
that the relationship is so beautiful that it must be of God—follows Satan’s
will instead of God’s. Doubting God is
to disbeliever God, which, as the apostle John tells us, makes a liar of Him
who cannot lie (1 John 5:10; cf. Titus 1:2).
Whenever and however we try to justify any sin, we degrade God’s
character and elevate Satan’s. To sin is
to believe Satan, and to follow righteousness is to believe God. Therefore, all sin results from failure to act in faith in who God is
and what He is. Faith, then, is the
shield.” I think that this
paragraph makes things simple to understand when it comes to disobeying God and
thus shows us to follow God and not follow Satan. It also makes me think of the countless
number of times that I have failed God, and thus followed Satan’s lie, and this
makes me also think about the longsuffering of God and how much He loves
me.
Let us look at
Proverbs 8:34 “"Blessed is the man who listens
to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts.” Sin forsakes and contradicts this promise
that God has given to us that those who listen to God are blessed. Jesus tells
us that God will never give us a stone when we ask for fish (Matt. 7:9), that
God will open the windows of heaven and pour out immeasurable blessings on His
faithful children as seen in Mal. 3:10. “"Bring
the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and
test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the
windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” James tells us in 1:17 “Every good thing given and every
perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom
there is no variation or shifting shadow.” Paul tells us that God will supply all of our
needs “according to His riches in glory” in Philippians 4:19, and then in
Ephesians 1:3 we learned that God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places in Christ” and there are hundreds of other such
promises, so why do we believe Satan’s lie that God is holding something back
from us?
There is only a little bit left in
our study of the shield of faith and we will, Lord willing, look at the only
way that we can extinguish these flaming missiles that Satan shoots at us in
our next SD.
In our
quotation from “Love in Action” today we will look at Dr. Jeremiah’s comments
from our verses from yesterday, Acts 5:1-2.
“These two were
like many would-be encouragers today.
They wanted recognition but didn’t like the requirements. They just couldn’t bring themselves to make
the full sacrifice, as Barnabas had done.
But because they wanted the same level of applause, the pretended to
give it all and kept some for themselves.
Their ‘act of love’ was not genuine.
It was tarnished with deceit and selfishness. They missed the blessing that could have been
theirs that could have been theirs because they were unwilling to pay the price
up front. The pretended!”
Now it is my
desire to finish the quotation that we have been looking at from Dr. Warren
Wiersbe’s book “The Strategy of Satan.”
“So when Satan
comes with pride to attack your will, surrender immediately to the Holy Spirit
and let him work in you to produce humility and submission before God. Do not attempt to go beyond your gifts or
faith you have to exercise those gifts.
Satan can use spiritual things
to make you proud: your ability to teach or preach the Word; your prayer life;
your success in witnessing and soul-winning.
“The story may
be apocryphal, but it illustrates the point.
A famous Christian businessman was visiting a church and was asked to
give a word of greeting. He got carried
away telling all that God had done for him.
‘I have a successful business, a large house, a lovely family, a famous
name, enough money to do the things I want to do and be able to give to
Christian works. I have health and
opportunities unnumbered. There are many
people would gladly exchange places with me.
What more could God give me?’
From the back of the auditorium a voce called, ‘A good dose of
humility!’
“Humble yourselves in the
presence of the Lord, and
He will exalt you.
James 1:19”
10/25/2019
12:16 PM
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