SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/6/2017 9:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “His Character”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 6:8
Message of the
verses: “And Stephen, full of grace
and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people.”
We have been looking, or at least starting to look at the
Godward and manward sides of Christian character and we want to continue
looking at that in this SD.
Why and how do believers do righteous deeds? Well first of all righteous deeds are a basic
NT principle for believers to do because of what happened to them at the new
birth. Let’s look at Colossians 3:8-9a
“8 But now you also, put
them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from
your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another.”
Paul is teaching these believers and others too from other letters he
wrote, that all Christian joy and usefulness, and all power and gracious
service will flow out of faith and obedience, and as we have been studying the
life of Stephen we can see this was true in his life. Believers were not to practice these things
Paul listed in Colossians 3:8-9a because they had “laid aside the old self with
its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true
knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Colossians
3:9b-10). Paul goes on in this letter
stating “12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on
a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing
with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against
anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. 14 Beyond all these
things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
The letters of Ephesians and Colossians were written from
Paul in prison and therefore they have some similar things in them so I have a
couple of fairly long quotes from Ephesians 4:1-3, and then 4:17-32.
1 Therefore I, the prisoner
of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which
you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
17 So this I say, and affirm
together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk,
in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding,
excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because
of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given
themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with
greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way,
21 if indeed you have heard Him and have
been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of
life, you lay aside the
old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
24 and put on the new self,
which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of
the truth. 25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you
WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another. 26 BE ANGRY, AND yet DO
NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil
an opportunity. 28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must
labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have
something to share with one who has need. 29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only
such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so
that it will give grace to those who hear. 30 Do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all
malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just
as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”
John MacArthur concludes this section in his commentary
by writing the following as he ties all these verses together with the life of
Stephen: “Stephen’s life displayed God’s
grace and power because he was filled with obedient faith and with the Holy Spirit. Those traits marked him with a greatness so
often overlooked. There is no other path to
virtuous character and a spiritually influential life than the path Stephen
exemplified.”
Lord willing, we will move onto looking at Stephens’s
courage in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I wrote something
in this place in my Spiritual Dairy in June of 2004 that I looked at this
morning. It was from a lesson on 1 John
1:5-6 which says “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to
you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say
that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do
not practice the truth;” “There are many enemies that I, as a believer
have, and these enemies are out to destroy my walk with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Among these enemies are the
world, the flesh, and the Devil.
“My computer has recently had many
different virus on it, and in thinking about these virus and how they get there
and also what they do, and thinking about why someone would take the time to
make things like this, God has been working in my heart to show me that there
are times when the virus of sin acts in the same way in my life.
“It seems to be easy to have my
computer infected with a virus, it can happen just by getting onto the
Internet. The Internet is like the
world, and if I am to go out into the world I must be protected by the Word of
God, and if I go out into the world of the Internet, I must be protected by a
virus protection program, and must keep it updated all of the time because
there are new virus’ waiting to attack my computer every time I get on the
Internet.
“Just like a virus can ruin the
effectiveness of my computer if left undetected, so can sin ruin my testimony
for the Lord if left undetected. The
answer to sin is to confess it to God as John wrote in 1John 1:9.”
Living the Christian life has been
said to be impossible and I think that this means that it is impossible without
the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and there are times in my walk
with the Lord when I forget things that we have talked about in this SD and I
need to remember the truth from an old Scottish Pastor that Dr. Warren Wiersbe
has quoted in many of his commentaries:
“The successful Christian life is a series of new beginnings.” I suppose that I would have fewer “new
beginnings” if I remember the truth of where I came from in the old life before
Christ and concentrate on what I now am in the new life that I have in Christ.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: I want to remember the truth of Matthew 11:28
“"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’” I have been given the rest of trying to do
things on my own to receive salvation as Christ paid it all, but sometimes I
fall into the trap of trying to do things in order to keep my salvation as I
don’t trust the Lord for His rest that He has promised me.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Seven”
(Exodus 2:16).
Today’s
Bible question: “What is one way to show
yourselves “approved unto God?” (The
title of my blog will give you the answer.)
Answer
in our next SD.
11/6/2017
10:41 AM
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