PT-1 "Loves Abundance" (Eph. 3:17b-19a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/11/2019 8:33 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-1 “Loves Abundance”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                           Reference:  Ephesians 3:17b-19a

 

            Message of the verses:  “and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,”

 

            We have been studying about being made strong inwardly by God’s Spirit and this will lead to Christ being at home in our hearts, which will then lead to love that is incomprehensible.  MacArthur writes “The result of our yielding to the Spirit’s power and submitting to Christ’s lordship in our hearts is ‘love.’  When Christ settles down in our lives He begins to display His own love in us and through us.  When He freely indwells our hearts, we become rooted and ‘grounded in love,’ that is, settled on a strong foundation of love.”

 

            In John’s gospel chapter 13 and verse 34 we read “A new commandment I give you that you love one another, even as I have loved you.”  Peter writes “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart (1 Pet. 1:22).  We realize, especially from our study in Ephesians, that it is the great desire of God that His children sincerely and fully love each other, in the same way that He loves us, and that is unconditional.  When we look at the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23 we find that love is listed first, and then the rest of the fruit is then listed.  Think of the fruit of the Spirit as an orange and when one thinks of an orange they perhaps think of all the different aspects as a part of the orange, like the outer skin, and then the other parts under that like the white part and then the different slices that are found under the skin.  However all is actually an orange, and so when we look at the fruit of the Spirit it is only one fruit and not the fruits of the spirit with love at the beginning, and then we find joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control and they are essentially subcategories of love.

 

            I have a little book written by David Jeremiah entitled “Love in Action,” and what my plans are is to quote different sections of this book once we run out of quotes and the verses that go along with the other quotes.  At the beginning of this little book we see a quote from C. Neil Strait which reads “Love is the one ingredient of which our world never tires and of which there is never an abundance.  The world will never outgrow its need for love.”

 

            I will close this rather short SD with a quote from this little book:  “Agape is love that comes from a God who is love.  It is love lavished upon others without a thought of whether they are worthy to receive it.  It is this kind of love that is to characterize the Christian.  This is totally selfless love that comes from God.  Agape is the power that moves us to respond to someone’s needs with no expectation of reward.  At least fifty-five times in the New Testament we are commanded to love.  It is one of Scripture’s most repeated, inescapable directives for the believer.  It touches us in all of our relationships and affects us in each of the many roles we play as parents, spouses, children, friends, and fellow believers.  It even defines the way we are to respond to our enemies.” 

 

            I think this quote goes well with what we are now studying from Ephesians.

 

Quote for Today:  “If thou thinkest twice, before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it.”  (William Penn)

 

Scripture verse that goes along with this quote in our next SD.

 

2/11/2019 8:59 AM

 

           

PT-2 "Christ's Indwelling) (Eph. 3:17a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/10/2019 9:26 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-2 “Christ’s indwelling”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 3:17a

 

            Message of the verse:  “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;”

 

            I mentioned in our last SD that we would look at some of the things that are in a booklet entitled “My Heart Christ’s Home” written by Robert Munger.  What happened yesterday is that while I was walking on my treadmill I was listening to John MacArthur’s sermon on this section of Scripture, something that helps me better understand what I am studying at the time, and while doing this he went on to talk for a bit about this booklet, and so I thought that I would quote from that section in order to give us all a better understanding of what Munger was writing about.

 

“Some of you have read the little booklet called "My Heart Christ's Home." If you haven't you ought to get it and read it. That's a good little booklet. I read it many, many years ago when I was just a kid. And it's ... it makes a person's heart, does a kind of allegory to where a person's heart and life is like a house. And Jesus comes to the house and starts it out. The fact that Jesus is there indicates the person is a Christian. And Robert Munger who wrote the booklet describes it this way. First Jesus went into the library which is the control room of the house. Right? What you read. Which is like the brain. Where all the information is stored. And Jesus goes into the room that is the mind, the brain, and he finds on the shelves all kinds of trash and garbage and junk and evil and bad thinking and bad human philosophy and useless stuff, stuff that is not going to help you. A lot of neutral things and He just takes it all off the shelves, throws it away and puts the Word up there. See. The control room. Then He goes to the dining room. And the dining room is the room of the appetite. Right? And the room of the desires. What do you really feast on? What do you really hunger for? What do you really want? And he finds a worldly menu. A menu of riches, a menu that includes prestige, a menu that includes things, materialism, lust of the flesh and He takes it all out, everything out of there, and puts a new menu in and it is the food that really satisfies the will of the Father. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So the library is cleaned up and the Word is there. And the dining room is cleaned up and the only thing on the menu is the will of God. And you can get it in any different shape and form you want it but it's all the will of God. And so the will of God becomes that for which you hunger, not your own fleshly desires.

“Then Jesus goes to the living room because the living room is where you share and you fellowship and He goes in there and He finds that that's where He's neglected. There's a lot of activity going on but nobody pays any attention to Him. He's just there. And all the fellowship and all the action that is going on, He's just there. I mean, you imagine that. Just think of it this way. Imagine the best friend you have, spend an entire day with you from dawn till midnight. The whole day. At your side the whole time. And all the while loving you, and all the while wanting to say to you, you know, here's a good thing to do...oh, I don't think you should do that ... I'd like to encourage you to do this. Well, all day long you never bother to even acknowledge the presence of your friend. You never even said hello. You just went about your business, some­ times giving an elbow, stepping on a toe. Just complete ... how long do you think that person would be your friend? About one day. Probably be pretty disillusioned. Jesus is the same kind of a friend only in a greater way. And it's very likely as near as one day last week He spent an entire day with you through which you never one time bothered to acknowledge His presence. Never one time. And yet He's your friend forever. It's a good think it's based on Him and not you. Right?

 

“And so the living room is a place of fellowship. But you've got to have the right fellowship. And so this is where you need to spend time with Christ. And you can clear out a lot of those worldly acquaintances. And a lot of that wasted activity and a lot of that stuff that doesn't have any redeeming virtue at all and spend your time with Christ and... listen to this; spend your time with people who have Christ living in them. See. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as a manner of some is and much the more as you see the day approaching because this is necessary to provoke yourselves to love and good works." Spend time with Jesus and spend time with people that Jesus lives in. Very important.

 

“Well, then He goes to the workshop. And He goes to the workshop and He finds fantastic tools, beautiful work bench. And the guy is in there making toys. Just toys. And Jesus says you've-got all this ability and you can't produce anything more than a toy? Jesus wants to take all your abilities, all your capacities, all your capabilities and cause them to produce things for the Kingdom. Cause them to lay up treasure in heaven, cause them to make things that have eternal value. So He changes the whole format in the workshop. He gets all done. I mean, the library's all fixed; it's got the right kind of stuff up there to control everything. The dining room is great, we've got the appetites all set on the will of God. The living room is settled, we're in there fellowshipping with Christ and people Christ lives in. And the workshop is ready; we're down there using our tools and our abilities to make things for the kingdom. But there's a strange odor coming from someplace. Nice and clean but something stinks. You know, like when the meat leaked under the ice box, or whatever. And the Lord isn't too happy. There's something dead in here, He says. And the guy says - Look, You come into my house. You clean up everything. I mean, leave me one closet, will You? That's all I ask. You can have the dining room and all this stuff, just ... that's my closet. The Lord says No, I want that closet. That's the closet full of personal sins, the hidden things, the dead things. And the man became very angry because Jesus had every other room but Jesus gave him a command - Open it! And he opened it and it was full of evil things. Those little secret things that nobody knows about, those things that go on in your mind. Those things that you do when nobody sees you do them. And Jesus cleaned that out. And when He got all that done-then He was at home. See?”

 

            I have mentioned before that when I quote from MacArthur’s sermons that whatever he says in the sermon is exactly what is printed on his website even if the English is not proper.  However I think that we can learn from these quotes even if the grammar is not perfect.

 

Verse that went with our last quote:  “Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’  ‘What shall we wear?’…For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things (Matthew 6:31-32).”

 

2/10/2019 9:40 PM

 

 

PT-1 PT-1 "Christ's Indwelling" (Eph. 3:17a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/9/2019 10:14 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-1 “Christ’s Indwelling”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                  Reference:  Ephesians 3:17a

 

            Message of the verses:  “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;”

 

            MacArthur writes “so ‘that’ translates hina, a Greek word used to introduce purpose clauses.  The purpose of being ‘strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man’ is ‘that Christ may dwell in [our] hearts through faith.’”

 

            Paul is not writing about Christ’s indwelling believers in salvation here, but indwelling them for the purpose of sanctification. We have mentioned that sanctification involves three stages:  First we are sanctified at salvation, that is set apart to Christ, second we have what is called a progressive sanctification, that is speaking of our spiritual growth, and thirdly we will be perfectly sanctified when we get to heaven.

 

            MacArthur writes “katoikeo (‘dwell’) is a compound word, formed from ‘kata (Down) and oikeo (to inhabit a house).  In the context of this passage the connotation is not simply that of being inside the house of our ‘hearts’ but of being at home there, settled down as a family member.  Christ cannot be ‘at home’ in our hearts until our inner person submits to the strengthening of His Spirit.  Until the Spirit controls our lives, Jesus Christ cannot be comfortable there, but only stays like a tolerated visitor.  Paul’s teaching here does not relate to the fact of Jesus’ presence in the hearts of believers but to the quality of His presence.”

 

            It looks like that I will make this rather short section of Scripture into two Spiritual Diaries because of the fact that it is the week-end and I try to do shorter SD’s on the week-end because of studying more intensely for my Sunday school class.  I will close this SD with a story that goes along with Christ feeling at home in our hearts, and it comes from Genesis chapters 18 and 19.

 

            In the eighteenth chapter of Genesis we find a story that tells of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ and two angels coming to meet with Abraham and his wife Sarah.  It was the heat of the day when they came to meet Abraham and Sarah and so it was a time of resting and keeping out of the sun, but as soon as they got there Abraham asked Sarah to get food for them.  It did not take too long for Abraham and Sarah to realize that they were being visited by God, and so they tried to make Him home in their house, or in this case “their tent.”  The second Person of the Godhead was telling Abraham what He was planning to do to Sodom and Gomorrah as there were wicked people in that city.  Abraham fearing for his nephew Lot began to talk to the Lord, actually trying to bargain with Him beginning with saying if there were fifty people would He destroy the city, and going down to ten, but there were not ten righteous people there. 

 

            The Lord did not go to visit Lot even though he was a believer as He sent His two angels to visit Lot and his family.  The Lord did not feel at home in Lot’s house as He did in Abraham and Sara’s house.

            In our next SD we will look for a bit at a book that was written by Robert Munger, My Heart Christ’s Home.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is a very important thing for Christ in the Person of the Holy Spirit to be at home in my heart, in my home.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to learn more about Romans 12:3.

 

Today’s quote:  “Worry is an old man with bended head, carrying a load of feathers which he thinks are lead (Corrie Ten Boom).”

PT-8 "The Spirit's Power" (Eph. 3:14-16)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/8/2019 9:58 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-8 “The Spirit’s Power”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 3:14-16

 

            Message of the verses:  “14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,”

 

            In our last SD I promised to quote the ending from John MacArthur’s rather long commentary on this subject.  I have mentioned the importance of this section as I remarked on the fact that the first two and a half chapters of Ephesians were written to mostly show us, who are believes what we have in Christ, and now Paul prays that what he explained in theses first two and a half chapters to become a part of the believers walk with the Lord.  We have to understand what Paul first writes which we took a bit over three months to go over, and now as we study this wonderful pray of Paul we can pray ourselves that God will make this prayer true in our lives.

 

            “When the ‘inner man’ is feed regularly on the Word of God and seeks the Spirits will in all the decisions of life, the believer can be sure he will be ‘strengthened with power through His Spirit.’  Spiritual power is not the mark of a special class of Christian but is the mark of every Christian who submits to God’s Word and Spirit.  Like physical growth and strength, spiritual growth and strength do not come overnight.  As we discipline our minds and spirits to study God’s Word, understand it, and live by it, we are nourished and strengthened.  Every bit of spiritual food and every bit of spiritual exercise add to our strength and endurance.

 

            “Spiritual growth can be defined as the decreasing frequency of sin. The more we exercise our spiritual muscles, yielding to the Spirit’s control of our lives, the less sin is present.  Where the strength of God increases, sin necessarily decreases.  The nearer we come to God, the further we go from sin.

 

            “As that occurs, what happens to the outer man matters less and less.  Paul could tell the Corinthians,

 

8 We are hard-pressed on all sides, but we are never frustrated; we are puzzled, but never in despair. 9 We are persecuted, but are never deserted: we may be knocked down but we are never knocked out! 10 Every day we experience something of the death of Jesus, so that we may also show the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours. 11 Yes, we who are living are always being exposed to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be plainly seen in our mortal lives. 12 We are always facing physical death, so that you may know spiritual life…16 This is the reason why we never lose heart. The outward man does indeed suffer wear and tear, but every day the inward man receives fresh strength (2 Cor. 4:8-12, 16 Phillips).’”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  What I have been publishing on my other blog seems to me, that it goes along with what this section is about as they both are about spiritual growth. 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love (2 Peter 1:5-7).”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Give myself to the Lord today to be used of Him as He sees fit.

 

Verse that goes along with yesterday’s quote:  “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls (Proverbs 25:28).”

 

2/8/2019 10:21 AM

PT-7 "The Spirit's Power" (Eph. 3:14-16)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/7/2019 7:59 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-7 “The Spirit’s Power”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 3:14-16

 

            Message of the verses:  “14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,”

 

            We read about the English man Julian Ellis Morris in our last SD, and the story that was told about him illustrated that we as believers are not to be spending a part of our day in apparent poverty like he did, but we are to be living a life of victory because of the richness that God has given to us because we are His child.  Now the first step in living like God’s children is to be “strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.”  I suppose that it is true that many believers never get to that first step, as they do not know what it is to see God’s power fully at work in them.  If believers suffer, then that means the church suffers and that means that the world will also suffer too because most believers are never “strengthened with power through His Spirit.” 

 

            As we have studied the book of Acts and also letters that Paul wrote we know that he healed many people, especially during the first part of his ministry, and we also learned that he had a deep concern for the hungry church at Jerusalem as seen by the collections that he made to help feed them which is recorded in the book of Acts along with written about in the 15^th chapter of his letter to the Romans.  This proves that Paul cared about the outer man, but the outer man is perishing each day, and so Paul’s real concern was for the inner man.  “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).”  “

 

            John MacArthur writes “In The Psychological Society Martin Gross questions the very foundations of psychology and psychiatry, suggesting that prestige and financial gain are the real driving forces behind them.  Even more significantly, however, he asserts that psychology and psychiatry have no answers to the mental and emotional ills they are used to treat.  His conclusion is that every person is incurably neurotic by nature and should be left alone with his neurosis.  From the purely human standpoint from which he writes, Gross’s pessimistic conclusion is perfectly sound; because man’s basic nature is indeed universally and incurably flawed.  But the flaw is sin, of which neuroses and all other problems are but symptoms.  The flaw is in the inner man, where man himself cannot perform a cure.”

 

            So what is the cure for the inner man?  “Only God can reach and cure the ‘inner man,’ and that is where He most wants to work.  His work begins with salvation, and after that His main field of work is still the ‘inner man,’ because that is where spiritual life exists and where it must grow.  The ‘divine nature,’ imparted to the believer at salvation (1 Pet. 1:3), is at the core of the ‘inner man’ and is the base from which the Holy Spirit changes the thinking of the believer.”

 

            As we have looked at the outer man is becoming weaker, and yet the inner man can continue to become stronger through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Jesus told His disciples right before He went back to heaven “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”  In the verse before this one the disciples was worrying about when the world was going to end, and when the Lord would return to get them, but Jesus did not answer their question about that but wanted them to focus on doing what He had planned for them to do in order to change the world, and change the world they did as they used that power to change the inner man of many thousands of people whom God then used to do the same through those people that were changed from the message of the apostles, and on it goes. 

 

            One of the chapters of the Bible that causes me to do much thinking about is the 7^th chapter of Romans.  Let us look at verses 22-23 “22  For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23  but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”  What we see here is Paul expressing the strong desire of a regenerated man to do the will of God, however is hampered by the sin that dwells in his fleshly body.  As we move onto chapter eight we hear Paul express the truth that victory is in this conflict is in the Holy Spirit.  “5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  Paul is talking about those that cannot please God, are not believers, but those who are His children can because we have the new nature that God has given to us, however we must please the Lord by living through the power of the Holy Spirit.  “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live (V. 13).”  MacArthur writes “In fact, the promise comes that through the power of the Spirit the believer can ‘kill’ the evil deeds of his unredeemed flesh (v. 13).”

 

            “The obedient, effective, and productive Christian must be Spirit conscious, Spirit filled, and Spirit controlled.”  “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).”

 

            In our last SD on this subject I want to quote from MacArthur’s commentary to help us better understand how we can have the victory that God desires believers to have through the Holy Spirit’s power working in our lives.  It will be a rather short SD, but one that all of us need to look at more than once to help us to be more like our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Quote from Dr. Warren Wiersbe “Because we possess this divine nature, we have ‘completely escape’ the defilement and decay in this present evil world.  If we feed the new nature the nourishment of the Word, then we will have little interest in the garbage of the world.  But if we ‘make provision for the flesh’ (Rom. 13:14), our sinful nature will lust after the ‘old sins’ (2 Peter 1:9) and we will disobey God.  Godly living is the result of cultivating the new nature within.”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To feed the new nature!

 

Today’s quote:  “Our strength is seen in the things we stand for; our weakness is seen in the things we fall for.”  (Theodore Epp.)

 

Scripture that goes along with this quote in our next SD:

 

2/7/2019 8:55 AM

 

PT-6 "The Spirit's Power" (Eph. 3:14-16)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/6/2019 8:35 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-6 “The Spirits Power”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 3:14-16

 

            Message of the verses:  “14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit (NLT).”

            14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, (NASB95).”

 

            In our last SD we talked a little bit about how when a believer lives out his life in a way that produces “the riches of His glory,” that this means little to the unbelieving world around them, and in our country today may even get them into some kind of trouble, but as believers, we are to make every effort to do this as we study His Word and learn and grow by doing so.  In the Spiritual Diary that I posted on my other blog this morning from 2 Peter there is a quote from Dr. Warren Wiersbe that I think goes well with living the Christian life:  “Because we possess this divine nature, we have ‘completely escaped’ the defilement and decay in this present evil world.  If we feed the new nature the nourishment of the Word, then we will have little interest in the garbage of the world.  But if we ‘make provision for the flesh’ (Rom. 13:14), our sinful nature will lust after the ‘old sins’ (2 Peter 1:9) and we will disobey God.  Godly living is the result of cultivating the new nature within.”  “For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins (2 Peter 1:9).”

 

            Since the beginning of this letter Paul has been exulting over those “divine riches” as seen in verses 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” and 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” and 1:4 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”  Ephesians 1:9 “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him,” and 1:11 “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”  John MacArthur writes “The phrase ‘of His glory’ testifies that these riches belong to God because of who He is.  They belong innately to His person, which is to say, His glory (cf. 1:17, where Paul calls God, ‘the Father of glory’ and Ex. 33:18ff. where God reveals His personal attributes as glory).

            “Those, and many others, are the riches that every believer has in Jesus Christ.  Paul is not praying for God to give these riches to believers, but ‘that He would grant’ believers ‘to be strengthened’ by God ‘according to the riches’ they already possess.  He wants them to live lives that correspond to the spiritual wealth they have in Christ.”

 

            I want to close this SD with a story from MacArthur’s commentary to help us understand that we are to live according to the riches He has given to us:  “A certain rich English eccentric named Julian Ellis Morris liked to dress like a tramp and sell razor blades, soap, and shampoo door-to-door.  After a day’s work he would return to his beautiful mansion, put on formal attire and have his chauffeur drive him to an exclusive restaurant in his limousine.  Sometimes he would catch a flight to Paris and spend the evening there.

            “Many Christians live something like Mr. Morris, spending their day-by-day lives in apparent spiritual poverty and only occasionally enjoying the vast ‘riches of His glory’ that their heavenly Father has given them.  How tragic to go around in the tattered rags of our own inadequacy when we could be living sumptuously in the superabundance of God’s unspeakable riches.”

 

            We will continue looking at these verses in our next SD, Lord willing.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To live according to “the riches of His glory” takes effort on my part and also I must rely on the Spirit of God to do this.  I realize that God desires me to live this way, for His glory, and not mine.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Remember the truth of Romans 12:3.

 

Verse that goes along with yesterday’s quote:  “A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!”  (Proverbs 15:23)

 

2/6/2019 9:10 AM

 

PT-5 "The Spirit's Power" (Eph. 3:14-16)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/5/2019 10:01 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  Pt-5 “The Spirit’s Power”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  Eph. 3:14-16

 

            Message of the verses:  “14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.”

 

            I promised to quote a story concerning Martin Luther in this SD, and will do after we talk a moment about this prayer that Paul includes in verses 14-21, a prayer that is very powerful to say the least.  Paul’s petition for the Ephesians, and thus for all believers was bold, confident, and it was inclusive, as Paul asked God to give believers “every spiritual” enablement that they did not already use to apply their available resources.  As I listened to a sermon by John MacArthur on this section of Scripture he mentioned that he had only preached on these verses once before when he first began his ministry at Grace Church some ten years before he was preaching at this time.  He went on to say that he had preached through these verses many, many times in places he went to preach outside of Grace Church, and the reason was that this prayer is extremely important for all believers to understand.  This prayer is about the things that Paul spoke of in the first three and a half chapters in this letter.  I gave the illustration about a car in an earlier SD, and stated that if a person knew all aspects of a car, but did not get into the car and drive it that it would do them no good.  If believers know all the truths that Paul describes in these first three and a half chapters but do not use them in their walk with the Lord, then it does not do them much good.  So as we continue looking at this prayer we see that Paul is praying that believers will use the doctrine that he taught them at the beginning of this letter.  By doing this it will make a big difference in our walk with the Lord. 

 

            “In 1540 Luther’s good friend and assistant, Friedrich Myconius, became sick and was expected to die within a short time.  From his bed he wrote a tender farewell letter to Luther.  When Luther received the message, he immediately sent back a reply:  ‘I command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church…The Lord will never let me hear that thou art dead, but will permit thee to survive me.  For this I am praying, this is my will, and may my will be done, because I seek only to glorify the name of God.’

            “Those words seem harsh and insensitive to modern ears, but God apparently honored the prayer.  Although Myconius had already lost the ability to speak when Luther’s reply came, he soon recovered.  He lived six more years and died two months after Luther.

 

            “In our daily living and in our prayer, it is more difficult to appreciate spiritual riches than it is to appreciate material riches.  Whether we have a lot of money or not, we have some comprehension of what material wealth is like.  We have a taste of it in the things we do possess and we can vicariously enjoy the expensive homes, cars, boats, jewelry, clothes, and other such things that we see rich people enjoying.  Spiritual riches, on the other hand, are not so obvious—and are not even attractive to the natural man or to disobedient Christians.”

 

            Now the entire above quote from MacArthur seems to me that we have to understand what he wrote just before he was writing about Luther, something that I am having a bit of trouble understanding, but I think that I need to quote that too.  MacArthur writes “As the rest of the prayer indicates, Paul’s petition for the Ephesians believers was bold, confident, and inclusive.  He asked God to give them every spiritual enablement they did not already use to apply their available resources.  Jacques Ellul, the contemporary Christian philosopher, is convinced that prayer for persons living in the technological age must be combative—and prayer, he says, is not just combat with Satan, corrupted society, and one’s own divided self, but is combat with God.  We must struggle with the Lord just as Jacob did at Peniel (Gen. 32:24-30), as Abraham boldly interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:23-32), and as Moses interceded for his fellow Israelites (Ex. 32:11-13; Num. 14:13-19).”  I really hope that this helps us understand more about the way that Paul was praying for the Ephesians, and thus praying for us.  I mentioned that the Lord answered a prayer for my son in finding a job, and as I look back at the way I prayed for him it goes along with what we are learning about prayer in this SD, about how Luther prayed for his friend, and how Jacob wanted a blessing from the Lord, and how Abraham prayed for Sodom, knowing that his nephew Lot was living there, and then the two times Moses interceded with God over the children of Israel.  Moses knew God, he knew about His attributes and so that is how he prayed for the children of Israel by talking to God about his attributes.  I think that this is a good way to pray, for if we know the Lord and know Him by knowing His attributes then we can be more effective in our prayer life.

 

            This section is a very long section in John MacArthur’s commentary, and as I continue to look at it and as I have listened to his sermon on this section I can understand why he is so passionate about this prayer that Paul prayed, for if we believers understand this then we will be able to do better things to glorify the Lord.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I realize that there are many things that I don’t know about praying to the Lord.  I know that one of the main things in praying is having my will lined up with the Lord’s will and in order for me to do a better job at this I need to study His Word.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Lord to make my prayer life more effective and to glorify the Lord.

 

Today’s quote:  “Words are things; and a small drop of ink falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think (Lord Byron).”

 

Verse that goes with this quote in our next SD.

 

2/5/2019 11:01 AM