PT-2 "Intro to Colossians 3:5-9a"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/16/2017 6:56 PM

My Worship Time                                                             Focus:  PT-2 Intro to Colossians 3: 5-9a

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 3:5-9a

            Message of the verses:  “5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.  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,”

            In our last SD we looked at the fact that we have died to sin’s penalty, but not to sin’s power, and this is a very important thing to understand as we move forward in our walk with the Lord.  You don’t have to be a believer too long to know that sin is potent.  As believers we have to rely on the Spirit’s power to defeat sin in our lives.  When we studied the book of Zechariah we learn a good lesson on this subject from chapter 4: and verse six “"This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ’Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.’”  In my morning SD from the book of John and chapter eighteen there was a good quote from a man named Gerald L. Borchert who was quoted by John MacArthur “Boasting of our abilities is an invitation to failure.”  This quote spoke of the fact that Peter in his own power stated that he would never deny the Lord, and just as the quote states he failed.  When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, at the end of his letter he wrote about the need for believers to put on the Spiritual armor. I have written about this in the past and stated that this is something that is needed for believers to do each day. One of the things that putting on the spiritual armor teaches us can be seen in the 4^th chapter of Matthew where we see Jesus using the Word of God against Satan, and He is our example so when we are tempted we are to take up the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God to fight against the wiles of Satan.  In order to do this we must study the Word of God to know what we are to use when we are tempted. 

            John MacArthur writes “Being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18) is the same as allowing the Word to dwell richly in you (Col. 3:16).  So it is true that the believer has died in the sense of paying sin’s penalty by being united with Christ in His death.  But it is equally true that sin still attacks his unredeemed humanness (cf. Rom. 8:23 [‘And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body,’]) and must, as a deadly enemy, be killed by the power of the Spirit through the Word.  So while we wait for ‘the redemption of [the] body’ (Rom. 8:23), the redeemed spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit, must kill the sin attacking the flesh.”

            Putting sin to death is not an option in the believer’s life.  John MacArthur quotes a Puritan named Richard Baxter and we will close with this:  “Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer, and the murderer of the world:  use it, therefore, as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did your Head, it shall not be able to keep your there.” 

4/16/2017 7:29 PM