PT-3 "The Necessary Foundation" (Eph. 5:21)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/5/2019 9:04 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-3 “The Necessary Foundation”

 

Bible Meaning and Meditation                                                         Reference:  Ephesians 5:21

 

            Message of the verse:  “and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            In the last several weeks we have been looking at the drinking of alcohol, when it comes to believers, and then we took some time to talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit.  Now we move onto looking what it looks like for believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit and this will continue as we move through verses 5:22-6:9.  This verse, 5:21, is what we call the necessary foundation as we transfer between what the meaning of being filled with the Spirit to what it looks like.  I suppose that I could go out on a limb and say that being filled with the Holy Spirit is the most important thing that believers can do, and when believers are not filled with the Spirit then they really cannot be a great witness to the lost or live a life that is really pleasing to the Lord.  I have struggled with what it means to live a humble life before the Lord and have been asking the Lord to show me what that is and all of the time it is something that I should have realized what it was all about as there are two things that I have been learning from my study of Ephesians to help me solve what was a mystery to me.  The first is that of the example of Jesus Christ as Paul describes in the 2^nd chapter of Philippians, and the second is being filled with the Holy Spirit which leads to the third thing and that is that I cannot do it on my own.  I have mentioned what Ephesians 2:10 means to me in that I believe that God has planned things for me to do way back in eternity past and the only way that I can do things that are pleasing to the Lord is in the power of the Holy Spirit, that means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength and what I do on my own for Him will end up at the judgment seat of Christ as wood, hay, and stubble.  So once again in order for me to do things that please the Lord I must be filled with His Spirit continually as the verb in Eph. 5:18 show us.

 

            John MacArthur writes “James said, ‘What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?  Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?’ (James 4:1).  Conflicts in the church, in the home, and in marriage always result from hearts that are directed by self rather than by the Spirit of God.  When self insists on its own rights, opinions, and goals, harmony and peace are precluded.  The self-centered life is always in a battle for the top, and pushes others down as it climbs up in pride.  The Spirit-centered life, on the other hand, is directed toward lowliness, toward subservience, and it lifts others up as it descends in humility.  The Spirit-filled believer does ‘not merely look out for [his] own personal interests, but also for the interests of others’ (Phil. 2:4).”

 

            MacArthur has many good things to listen to in this section, so much that I only want to take a little bit at a time, and so I want to finish this SD with one more quote from him and then, Lord willing, pick up on some more in our next SD.

 

            “Be subject’ is from hupotasso, originally a military term meaning to arrange or rank under.  Spirit-filled Christians rank themselves under ‘one another.’  The main idea is that of relinquishing one’s rights to another person.  Paul counseled the Corinthian believers to be in subjection to their faithful ministers ‘and to everyone who helps in the word and labors’ (1 Cor. 16:16).  Peter commands us to ‘submit [ourselves] for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.  For such is the will of God’ (1 Pet. 2:13-15; cf. Rom. 13:1-7).  A nation cannot function without the authority of its rulers, soldiers, police, judges, and so on.  Such people do not hold their authority because they are inherently better than everyone else but because without the appointment and exercise of orderly authority the nation would disintegrate in anarchy.”  (In light of what we have seen over this past week-end what MacArthur has written is very insightful.)

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The Bible always has the things that helps us to live a life that will end up in a peaceful way of living, and I am always thankful for better understanding what it has to tell me.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to be filled with the Spirit this day so that my life will be humble before the Lord and others I associate with today.

 

Today’s quotation comes from Phillips Brooks who stated “Pray the largest prayers.  You cannot think a prayer so large that God in answering it will not wish you had made it larger.  Pray not for crutches but wings.”

 

8/5/2019 9:40 AM

PT-2 "The Necessary Foundation" (Eph. 5:21)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/4/2019 9:05 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-2 “The necessary Foundation”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:21

 

            Message of the verse:  “and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            We continue to look at the transition between what we have been looking at about being filled with the Holy Spirit and then the things that will happen to us when we are filled with the Spirit as we will see in verses 5:22-6:9. 

 

            In John MacArthur’s commentary he spends a lot of time talking about marriage in the beginning of this chapter that we are looking at, and talks about things like how easily it is for believers to get a divorce and the fact that the church in most cases does not look at this as being a big problem because it happens so often.  Things are much different in the church in our country at this time as compared to 50 years ago, and things are not very good as far as following things that the Bible has to say about marriage and even having children.  It is not uncommon for believers to live together with one another before getting married, and this kind of thing happening in the church 50 years ago hardly ever happened.  Bottom line is that the church in our country is becoming worldlier and as we look around at things that are happening in our country and around the world we see the fall out of not following what the Bible has to say. 

 

             John MacArthur writes “God will forgive, cleanse, and restore the repentant believer, but He does not change His standards of righteousness and purity and does not promise to remove the often tragic consequences of disobedience.  If the church seeks to accommodate those divine standards to the foolishness and sinfulness of its own members, it not only offends and grieves God but undercuts its testimony to the world.  If marriage cannot be right in the church it can hardly be right in the world, any more than it was in Paul’s day.”

 

            He writes latter “Families are the building block of human society, and a society that does not protect the family undermines its very existence.  When the family goes, everything else of value soon goes with it.  When the cohesiveness, meaningfulness, and discipline of the family are lost, anarchy will flourish.  And when anarchy flourishes, law, justice, and safety cannot.  The family nourishes and binds society together, whereas the anarchy that results from its absence only depletes, disrupts, and destroys.

 

            “The unredeemed can benefit greatly from following God’s basic principles for the family, but the full power and potential of those principles can be understood and practiced by those who belong to Him by faith in His Son.  Paul speaks to the Ephesians as fellow Christians, and apart from the divine life and resources that only Christians possess, but principles for marriage and the family that he gives in this letter are out of context and thus limited benefit.  The basic principle of being subject to one another finds its power and effectiveness only in ‘the fear of the Christ.’ The family can only be what God has designed it to be when the members of the family are what God has designed them to be—‘conformed to the image of His Son’ (Rom. 8:29).  Just as an individual can find fulfillment only in a right relationship with God, so the family can find complete fulfillment only as believing parents and children follow His design for the family in the control and power of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18b).”

 

Bible verse that goes along with D. L. Moody’s quotation is from Matthew 26:19 “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

 

8/4/2019 9:31 PM

PT-1 "The Necessary Foundation" (Eph. 5:21)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/3/2019 7:29 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-1 “The Necessary Foundation”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:21

 

            Message of the verse:  “And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            We began to look at the background for this section in our last SD as we will begin to be prepared with what Paul has to say about our relationship with wives and husbands and also our children, and then those we work for after this statement found in 5:21 as this verse is a transition to what we have just written, and this subject will be discussed between Ephesians 5:22-6:9.

 

            One of the greatest problems we face in our country is the breakdown of the traditional family.  Good families are crucial to making a good country, but when we see the millions of families who grow up without a father involved, and then this makes it necessary for the mother to work to fend for the family, which means that the children are many times unattended and so grow up pretty much on their own.  In my family of five my father worked full time, and my mother stayed at home to care for us children.  I remember a time when I had a friend whose mother worked outside the home and she asked my mother to care for her son.  My father would have nothing to do with this as he said that the mother should stay home and care for her own child.  In my family there were two children to care for and my wife stayed home to care for them.  I on the other hand had to spend many hours at work in order to give our children a good Christian education, and then a good college education.  In some ways this was hard on our family, but it was far better than having my wife work outside the home.

 

            John MacArthur writes the following from his commentary which actually came from his many sermons on the book of Ephesians, and those sermons were given sometime in the late 1970’s.  “Among the worst tragedies of our day is the progressive death of the family as it has been traditionally known.  Marital infidelity, exaltation of sexual sin, homosexuality, abortion, women’s liberation, delinquency, and the sexual revolution in general have all contributed to the family’s demise.  Each one is a strand in the cord that is rapidly strangling marriage and the family.”

 

            He goes on a little later to write “Without a proper basis of authority for relationships, people grope for meaningful, harmonious, fulfilling relationships by whatever means and arrangements they can find or devise.  Experimentation is their only resource and disintegration of the family—and ultimately of society in general—is being disclosed as the inevitable consequence.”

 

            We who are believers need to stand up and tell others about what the Bible has to say about how families are to operate.  I realize that in our day and age we live in that we are subjected to ridicule, but that comes with the territory of being a true believer. 

 

            Another problem is that these confusions about how the family should operate is making its way, and has been for many years, into the church.  It is not uncommon to have a gay woman “pastor” in churches today.  This breaks two rules of what the Bible has to say about being a Pastor.  One is that women are not to be Pastors, and to find out the truth of this one needs to go to the qualifications of being a Pastor that Paul writes in what is called his “Pastoral Letters,” as seen in his letters to Timothy and Titus.  The other rule is about homosexual relationships, which are prohibited in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.  Remember the story in Genesis of God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.  Also Paul writes about this issue in the first chapter of Romans1: “26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error” (Rom. 1:26-27)   In the MacArthur Study Bible he writes about what is meant by this highlighted portion from verse 27 and states that Aids fits into this statement.  If these verses are not bad enough to explain the downfall of the family and thus a country we then read verse 32, which is where we will end our discussion for today:  “32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I realize that things in our country are looking not so good, and I have to say that it truly bothers me very much, but the best thing that I can do is to pray about it and tells others the good news of the gospel.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will keep me filled with His Spirit today in order that I can demonstrate humility in my life today.

 

Today’s quotation comes from D. L. Moody who stated “If you pray for bread and bring no basket to carry it, you prove the doubting spirit which may be the only hindrance to the gift you ask.”

 

8/3/2019 8:07 AM

The Consequence Toward Fellow Believers: Submission (Eph. 5:21)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/2/2019 9:42 AM

 

My Worship Time                 Focus:  “The Consequence Toward Fellow Believers:  Submission”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:21

 

            Message of the verse:  “21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            I promised in our last SD that today’s SD will be very short.  We are in the process of finishing the outline from John MacArthur’s 20^th chapter entitled “Be Filled with the Spirit—part 2,” and looking at the very short 21^st verse in this 5^th chapter of Ephesians. 

 

            I have mentioned that one of the things that I believe that the Lord desires me to work on this year is humility and one of the huge things that I have learned about this subject is that a humble person is a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit, the subject that we have been looking at since the 9^th of July, and will finish today.

 

            Because the commentary from MacArthur’s commentary on Ephesians 5:21 is only two paragraphs I will just take the time to quote it and then give a few comments on my own.

 

            “The filling and control of the Holy Spirit will lead us to a spirit of humility, to the spirit that gives us the desire to seek the welfare of others before our own and to be mutually submissive.  The rich details of this verse will be discussed in the next chapter, since the verse provides a transition to the coming section.

 

            “In the rest of chapter 5 and through 6:9, Paul expands on the principle of believer’s submission as it controls the relationship of husbands and wives, children and parents, and slaves and masters.”

 

            According to this quote and looking ahead at the next chapter in MacArthur’s commentary we will be looking at a number of things that will come out of this 21^st verse of Ephesians chapter 5.  He entitles the 21^st chapter “The Necessary Foundation,” and Lord willing we will begin to look at this section in our next SD.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There is a lot of having my toes stepped on as we go through this section of Ephesians chapter five.  I guess that the stepping on of my toes is a part of God’s answers to becoming more humble in my walk with the Lord.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trusting the Lord to continue to teach me the things about being filled with the Spirit so that my walk with the Lord will be more pleasing to Him.

 

Today’s verse in response to yesterday’s quotation from Oswald Chambers is Psalm 19:7-8 “The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”

8/2/2019 9:59 AM

To Whom are we to be Thankful: God the Father (Eph. 5:20)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/1/2019 8:01 AM

 

My Worship Time                              Focus:  To Whom are we to be Thankful?—God the Father

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:20

 

            Message of the verses:  “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;”

 

            Let us begin today’s SD by looking at Ephesians 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.”  We can see from this verse that it is God the Father who has given to us every spiritual blessing, and so that is why we are to give all genuine thanks to God the Father.  As I think about this I go back to before time began and think about how in eternity past that God the Father was the Person of the trinity who devised a plan to give a bride to His Son and thus when the time was right He sent His Son into the world: Gal. 4:4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.”  Then of course we can think about John 3:16 too “"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  These verses help us to understand what God the Father planned for His Son in eternity past, and thus that not only giving of His Son, but also the killing of the Son was all a part of God’s plan in order to provide a bride for His Son.  This is why as our verse instructs us that we are to give our thanks to God, even the Father.

 

            I would like to site one move verse in order to help us understand why we are to give thanks to God the Father:  “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” (James 1:17).

 

            John MacArthur writes “Even those things that come through others comes from God.  We should be grateful for what anyone does for us, and we should thank them for it.  But thankfulness to others will likely be little more than flattery if we do not acknowledge that the true source of the gift is God.”

 

            “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom. 1:21).  This verse shows us that the mark of the unsaved person is thanklessness to God, however the mark of the Spirit-filled believers is “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”  The Spirit-filled believer is “anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving [lets his] requests be made know to God (Phil. 4:6).  Not only that but he is “overflowing with gratitude” as seen in Col. 2:7) and he also continues to offer “up sacrifices of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name” as seen in Hebrews 13:15.l

 

            John MacArthur concludes this section by writing “A city missionary in London was called to an old tenement building where a woman lay dying in the last stages of a terrible disease.  The room was cold and she had nowhere to lie but on the floor.  When the missionary asked if there was anything he could do, she replied, ‘I have all I really need; I have Jesus Christ.’  Deeply moved, the missionary went home and penned these words:

 

‘In the heart of London City,

Mid the dwellings of the poor,

These bright and golden words were uttered,

‘I have Christ.  What want I more?’

Spoken by a lonely woman dying on a garret floor,

Having not one earthly comfort,

‘I have Christ.  What want I more?’”

 

            There is one more small section to look at in this 20^th chapter of MacArthur’s commentary and I think that I will save it for tomorrow even though it may well be the shortest SD that I will ever write.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The story of the poor dying woman from London has moved my heart a lot.  This woman who had nothing of human value had the Lord as her Lord and Savior and that was all that she needed.  It reminds me of a song.

 

Give Me Jesus

Jeremy Camp

In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

When I am alone
When I am alone
Oh, when I am alone
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

Jesus
Give me Jesus

When I come to die
When I come to die
Oh, when I come to die
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus

 

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
You can have all this world
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  The woman in the story was certainly filled with the Holy Spirit and this means that she was a very humble person, something that I am trying to learn.

 

Today’s quotation is from Oswald Chambers who stated “Never compromise with those who water down the Word of God to human experience.”

 

8/1/2019 8:42 AM

  

"How Are we to be Thankful-in the Name of Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/31/2019 10:10 AM

 

My Worship Time      Focus: PT-2 “How are we to be thankful?—in the name of Jesus Christ”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:20

 

            Message of the verses:  “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;”

 

            We spoke about the fact that if a person is not a true born-again believer that they really have nothing to be thankful for.  That may sound a bit strange, but as far as eternal things an unbeliever only has a future without Christ, which of course means hell, and so why would a person be truly thankful in this life without Christ.  The unbeliever “does not have the promise of heirship in God’s family and citizenship in God’s kingdom –or any other of the wonderful promises of Christ.  He does not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and cannot have the filling.  He cannot be thankful for everything because for him everything does not give a reason for thanks.  He sees only the present, not eternal glory” (MacArthur).

 

            The total opposite is true of the child of God as he is indwelt by Christ, and is a joint heir with Him, and also does have the Son interceding for him at the Father’s right hand.  That is truly something to be thankful for.  And as the Holy Spirit fills the believer, he is cleansed from sin and made more and more into the conformity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

            I believe that one of the aspects of being filled with the Spirit can be seen in things that Christ did while on earth for He was continually in contact with His Father through praying.  We can see for example, in Matthew 15:36, similar to Mark 8:6 the following “and He took the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke them and started giving them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.”  Another example of His thankfulness is seen just before He brought Lazarus back from the dead “41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 “I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me’” (John 11:41-42).  Luke 22:19 is another example “And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’”

 

            John MacArthur writes “Jesus was ridiculed, despised, scorned, rejected, spat upon, blasphemed, beaten, and finally crucified.  Yet because of His great humility He always gave thanks in all things.  He deserved glory but received humiliation, deserved love but received hate, and deserved honor but received dishonor.  He deserved praise but received scorn, deserved riches but received poverty, and deserved holiness but was made sin on our behalf.  Yet He never lost His thankfulness to His heavenly Father, because He ‘Emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, that being made in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’ (Phil. 2:7-8).

 

            “Because Jesus emptied Himself to the point of giving His own life, He is able to fill us with everything of which He emptied Himself, including life.  We deserve humiliation, but in Christ we receive glory.  We deserve to be hated but instead are loved, and deserve dishonor but receive honor.  We deserve scorn but are given praise, deserve poverty but are given riches, and deserve sin’s curse of death but are given righteousness and eternal life.  For what can we not give thanks?”

 

            I have to say that what I have just quoted is a lot to digest, and so perhaps it is something we all need to meditate on.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to say that the Lord is truly teaching me things about humility, and even thought there has been some spiritual struggles I am going through, the teaching of humility is worth the struggles and I believe that the enemy does not want me to learn what the Bible teaches me about humility.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To trust the Lord to continue to teach me humility.

 

Matthew 6:14-15 are the verses that go along with yesterday’s quotation from Thomas Fuller:  “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

 

7/31/2019 10:49 AM

 

           

PT-2 "For What Are We to Give Thanks?-For all things" (Eph. 5:20)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/30/2019 11:33 AM

 

My Worship Time                  Focus:  PT-2 “For what are we to give thanks?—for all things”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:20

 

            Message of the verse:  “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;”

 

            We talked about humility, something I mentioned that I was focusing in on this year, and even after that.  We stated that pride is the opposite of humility, and we know that pride is sinful.  Believers are still subject to the temptations of pride.  You know that life is a battle even when we become believers and pride is something that is difficult to get away from.  The only cure to pride is humility, and this comes with being filled with the Holy Spirit, since being filled with the Spirit is to die to self.  MacArthur writes “When we cease with selfishness, the consequence is to put Christ and His will above all else.  Humility dethrones self and enthrones Christ, and in doing that it thankfully acknowledges that every good thing—including many things that do not at the time seem to be good—are from His gracious hand.”

 

            We now move on to the next sub-section entitled “How are we to be thankful—in the name of Jesus Christ.”

 

            What we are to do is to give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and to do that we are to give thanks consistent with who He is and what He has done.  In order to do this we must know about who our Lord is and this is done by studying His attributes, and His attributes are the same as the Father’s and the Holy Spirit’s.  In understanding His attributes we know that He is HOLY, good, glorious, pure, sovereign, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, truth, measureless, omnipresence, omnipotent, omniscience, all wise, immutable, eternal, God is wrath, God pardons, God is Jealous, faithful, God is love and just.  Our Lord is in control of all things even when we don’t understand how certain things happen to us, He is still in control, and knowing this we can give thanks always and for all things because no matter what happens to us it will turn out not only for our ultimate blessing but, more importantly, for His ultimate glory.  MacArthur adds “When we sing, it is Christ singing through us, and when we give thanks, it is Christ giving thanks to the Father through us.”

 

            Without our Lord Jesus Christ it would be foolish to be thankful for everything for apart from Him all things do not turn out for good.  Oh it may seem good for a while, but thing later on it will not seem so good and one may wonder why they thought it was good in the first place. 

 

            I want to finish this SD with an enjoyable story, and then, Lord willing we will pick up on this section again tomorrow.  Enjoy the story!

 

In his book In the Eye of the Storm, Max Lucado tells the story of “The Woodcutter’s Wisdom”:

 

“Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before – such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength.

 

People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. ‘This horse is not a horse to me,’ he would tell them. ‘It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?’ The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.

 

One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. ‘You old fool,’ they scoffed, ‘we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high. Now the horse is gone, and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.’

 

The old man responded, ‘Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?’

 

The people contested, ‘Don’t make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse.’

 

The old man spoke again. ‘All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don’t know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?’

 

The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn’t he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.

 

After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. ‘Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.’

 

The man responded, ‘Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase?

 

‘Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don’t say this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don’t.’

 

‘Maybe the old man is right,’ they said to one another. So they said little. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.

 

The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments. ‘You were right,’ they said. ‘You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever.’

 

The old man spoke again. ‘You people are obsessed with judging. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.’

It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would ever return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.

 

‘You were right, old man,’ they wept. God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.’

 

The old man spoke again. ‘It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows’.”

 

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful that the Lord has either taught me or reminded that a humble person is filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be a humble person.

 

Today’s quotation is from Thomas Fuller:  “He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.”

 

7/30/2019 12:22 PM