SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/18/2014
8:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus: A Prospering Love
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 3:12
Message of the
verse: “12 and may the Lord cause you to increase and
abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you;”
Paul prayed for the Thessalonians that as the persecution
came to them that they would continue to love one another and that meant not
only their fellow believers, but also for those who were not believers. When we go through difficult times we
sometimes put up walls around us so that we will not let others in and will not
love others who are going through difficult times too. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Our growing faith in God
ought to result in a growing love for others.
We are ‘taught of God to love one another’ (1 Thess. 4:9), and some of
these lessons are best learned in the school of suffering.” He next reminds us of the example that Joseph
set when his brothers sold him and he ended up in Egypt where God took thirteen
years to teach him how to lead a nation so that he could be used of God to save
his family, a family that God would turn into a nation in the following four
hundred years. Joseph would learn to love
and forgive his brothers for doing what they did to him. This was taught to him by the Lord as he went
through those thirteen years of difficulty and also when he learned that God
was actually the One who sent him to Egypt in order to save his family.
Dr. Wiersbe writes:
“What life does to us depends on what life finds in us; and nothing
reveals the true inner man like the furnace of affliction. Some people build walls in times of trial,
and shut themselves off. Others build
bridges and draw closer to the Lord and His people.”
As Paul prayed for these believers he desired to leave it
to God to continue to develop these virtues in their lives. Paul knew that it had to be the working of
the Holy Spirit to accomplish this, and this is true with all things that we
learn from the Lord. We must remember that
when we’re born we are born with an old nature that can do nothing to please
the Lord. Once the Lord saves us we are
given a new nature that always wants to please the Lord, and therefore it is
this new nature that is empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish the things
that God has for us to accomplish for the cause of Christ.
John MacArthur writes “Paul asked first that their love
would increase and abound..for one another, that is, within the church. There are more than thirty positive and
negative ‘one another’s’ in the New Testament, and love appears by for the most
often. Second, the apostle prayed that
their love for all people would increase.
He wanted them to have a greater love for the lost and for those who
persecuted them, as Jesus commanded His disciples, ‘Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).”
I have three missionaries that I pray for each day and
one of them wrote that one of the Christians that live in the country where
they minister had his orchard partly burned down by a man who said that he hated
Christians. God saved part of the
orchard and my prayer is that this man will still be able to make a living with
the remaining orchard that was spared. I
also pray that God will save this man who burned down his orchard, for we read
of the Apostle Paul who also hated Christians, but God saved him, so He can
save this man too. I also pray that the
man whose orchard was burned will forgive the man who did it, and thus show the
love of God to him.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is easy to
treat those who love us good, but God loves us even though we were His enemies
and sent His Son to save us, so we should be able through His power to love
believers and to love those who are not.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Help me to love all people with a love
that God has loved me with.
Memory verse for the
week: Philippians 2:5-6
Have this attitude in
yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form
of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Eleazar” (Numbers 20:25-28).
Is Ezekiel considered a
major or minor prophet?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/18/2014 9:30 AM
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