SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/9/2014
9:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Believer Should Not Act Like
Unbelievers
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 4:5
Message of the
verses: “5 not in lustful passion,
like the Gentiles who do not know God;” We are looking at the second point
about how believers can keep themselves from sexual immorality, in other words
sustaining from sexual immorality.
I suppose that people like me who did not get saved until
a bit later in life are going to have a more difficult time with the subject we
are looking at today. However Paul began
with older people in the city of Thessalonica when he preached there and they
had to follow what he is writing about in this section, so with the power of
the Holy Spirit and also the Word of God, something that they did not have in
the form that believers have today we too can follow what Paul writes which was
under the power of the Holy Spirit.
What Paul is doing in this fifth verse is talking about
the difference between believers and unbelievers and thus he uses the word
Gentiles as those who do not know Christ as their Savior and Lord. Let us look at a verse that has helped me
understand this truth: “"He who
believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not
see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."” This is John 3:36 and the speaker is John the
Baptist, and what he is saying is that those who have trusted Christ as Savior
and Lord are saved and belong to God and those who did not trust Christ will be
lost and the wrath of God will come upon them.
John is saying that there are only two kinds of people in the world,
those who are saved and those who are lost.
Those who are unbelievers have an uncontrolled desire for
sexual gratification, and this was typical of those who lived in Paul’s day in
Thessalonica, however Paul is telling his readers that they are no longer to
live like the unbelievers because they are now knew creatures in Christ and
everything is now different in their lives.
Let’s look at what John MacArthur writes about passion
and lustful in this verse: “Passion (pathos) means ‘uncontrollable desires,
compelling feelings, overpowering urges’ and has a negative connotation here
(cf. Rom. 1:26; Col. 3:5). Lustful (epithumias) refers to an out-of-control
craving, usually for that which is unrighteous or illegitimate (cf. Rom. 6:12;
2 Tim. 2:22; Titus 3:3; 1 Peter 4:3), although it can refer to legitimate
desires and longings (cf. Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 2:17). The words used together forcefully
characterize the immorality of those who do not know God.”
Let us look at a couple of verses from Paul’s letter to
the Galatians “"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I
who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me (Gal.
2:20).” “24 Now those who belong to
Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we
live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:24-25).” Paul also wrote the following from his letter
to the Colossians: “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,
since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being
renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him-
(Col. 3:5-10).”
MacArthur writes something that helps me to understand
that I, as a believer can also have these kind of thoughts and even actions if
I don’t yield to the Spirit and to the Word:
“But believers can cultivate immoral thoughts and commit immoral acts—so
they need this instruction.” The
instruction found in the verses we have looked and also from 1 John
3:9-10: “9 No one who is born of God
practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is
born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are
obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who
does not love his brother.” The key word
found in this passage is “practice.”
When we are born we are born into sin because the sin nature is passed
on by the father, in other words we sin because we are sinners. When we are born-again we are given a new
nature which opposes the old nature and when we sin after we become a believer
we sin because we yield to the old nature which always wants to sin. John is saying that we do not practice sin.
MacArthur finishes this section with the following
paragraph. “Christians must not lower
themselves to a level of pagan sexual behavior determined merely by unthinking
passions and uncontrolled fleshly urges.
Because of their intimate relationship with a holy God, believers must
not subject themselves to an ungodly society’s vast array of sexual immoral
temptations (cf. 2 Tim. 2:22; 1 John 2:15-16).
Over exposure to such temptations will only lower one’s resistance and
diminish one’s outrage, thus weakening spiritual resolve and virtue. Scripture warns God’s children to stay far
away from, even to flee, all immorality (1 Cor. 6:18). Lustful thoughts and feelings can lead
believers to actions that are completely incongruous with their position in the
body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 6:15-20).” I
listened one day to a person talking about this subject resting or at least
trying to resist thought patterns that can cause a believer to fall. The man was talking about a couple of men in
the service and one of them was a small man who was a very good boxer, while
the other man was a very big man who did not have great skills in boxing. The smaller man needed someone to spar with
and so the larger man thought he would do it as he thought that the little man
would not do much harm to him. He was
wrong as the little man kept hitting him with blows that by themselves would
not harm him but as he repeated the blows the larger man eventually was
hurt. This is how the old nature and the
devil work on believers, and if we do not use the Word of God as Jesus did in
Matthew chapter four we can be defeated.
John MacArthur said the following in
his sermon on the subject we were talking about in our study a couple days ago,
but it goes along with what we are talking about here: “No, the question is never...what can I do
and get away with it?...the question is never how far can I
go, the question is
how can I live so pure, so sanctified, so noble in my Christian living that I
honor my body, I honor therefore my Lord and His redeemed church? Don't let
your body control you. And we live in a culture where the whole name of the
game is get the mind away and let the body go and Christianity is the opposite,
absolute opposite.
“ I have said this so many times when talking to
other pastors who have fallen into sin, isn't there some point in time where
you say, "Wait a minute, this is my marriage, this is my ministry, this is
everything? Stop." And the answer I get is, "You never think about that." Why? Because long before the mind has
been eliminated from the process and all that is left is the passion of the
body. Don't let your body control you. That means walking in the Spirit
which means being filled by the Spirit which means letting the Word dwell in
you richly which means putting the Word in.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I can
have all the right motives not to fall into sexual sin, but I have to first of
all keep my mind clean from sexual thoughts and fill it with the Word of God in
order to win this victory, one day at a time.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Win the battle, one day at a
time.
Memory verses for
the week: Philippians 2:5-9
5 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, 7 but
emptied Himself, taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being in the
likeness of men. 8 Being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death, even
death on a cross. 9 For this reason
also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every
name
Answer to yesterday’s
Bible question: “Shepherds” (Luke
2:9-16).
Today’s Bible
question: “What book contains the
history of the early days of the Christian church?”
Answer in our next
SD.
6/9/2014 10:48 AM
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