SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/12/2014
8:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Father
as Teacher and Motivator
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 2:11
Message of the
verses: “11 just as you know how we
were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would
his own children,”
When we look at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ while
He was on the earth we saw that He spoke to large crowds, but He also took time
to speak to individuals. This took a
great deal of time to do this, but it was important for Him to do this for just
think of all the time He spent with His disciples individually and because of
this there were some of them who wrote parts of the New Testament. They went to different parts of the known
world teaching and preaching the Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead
and how people can be saved. Christ’s
time with the disciples was one of the most important things He did other than
dying for our sins, for His teaching of them and the work of the Holy Spirit in
them set the stage for the New Testament Church to be born and to keep on growing
even until today.
Paul also took time to talk to individual believers as a
father would his own children, helping them with difficult problems that they
were going through and answering difficult questions. I cherish the time that I can spend with my
pastor on an individual basis. As week
or so before I left on the vacation that I am on I had the privilege of having
dinner with my pastor and that one on one time was very helpful to me. Paul did this kind of thing with the people of
Thessalonica even though he was preaching to them and also working a job to
help support himself he still took the time to do this.
John MacArthur states that “This fatherly instruction is
conveyed in three verbs describing what fathers do and what Paul had done
continually.” We will look at these
three verbs and what they mean.
The word “exhorting” is from the Greek word “parakaleo,”
and this is a word that means “to call along side.” The Holy Spirit is called by this Greek word
as He is called along side believers to aid in their walk with the Lord. Let us look at John 14:16-17, 26 “16 “I will
ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you
forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you
and will be in you. 26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to
your remembrance all that I said to you.” Verse 26 speaks of what was written earlier as
the Holy Spirit caused the disciples to remember the things that were taught to
them individually by Christ. John
MacArthur writes “The apostle referred to coming alongside children for the
purpose of aiding, directing and instructing wisely as a source of character
conduct.”
The word “encouraging” is the Greek word “paramutheomai”
and it means “to encourage in the sense of comfort and consolation, and this is
very critical in assisting toward spiritual growth because of the many
obstacles and failures Christians can experience.” MacArthur continues “Used in John 11:19 and
31 for the consolation given to the grieving family of Lazarus, the word was
reserved for the tender, restorative, compassionate uplifting needed by a
struggling, burdened, heartbroken child.
This beautiful expression of natural fatherly kindness also fits the
spiritual father.”
The following is what MacArthur writes about the final
verb in this verse: “Finally, Paul
reminded the believers that he had been imploring each one (singling them out
personally). Imploring is the Greed
participle “marturomenoi” which is usually translated ‘testifying,’ or
witnessing,’ is related to the word “martyr” because so many faithful witnesses
died for their boldness. Paul warned the
Thessalonians that any deviation from the divinely prescribed course fo conduct
had serious consequences. The warning
was an admonishment that if they did not follow the course laid out for them,
they, as disobedient children would receive from a father, could expect to
receive spiritual discipline from the apostle.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As a born-again believer
in Jesus Christ, and still having a sin nature which gets in the way of my walk
with the Lord, I realize that there are times when the Lord will discipline
me. I desire to understand when I am
being disciplined and also why so that I can, by God’s grace correct the sinful
things that I am being disciplined for.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to show me the answer to the
question I raised in the portion above.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Melita” (Acts 28:1).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who gave the history of the
Jewish nation in defending himself before the council?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/12/2014 9:18 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment