SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/6/2014
9:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Requests
Paul makes for the Thessalonians PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2
Thessalonians 1:11b-d
Message of the
verses: “that our God would count
you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness,
and the work of faith with power:”
“Knowing that prayer fits in harmoniously with God’s
sovereign will to bring about the spiritual ends He desires, Paul listed three
specific requests he made on behalf of the Thessalonians: worthiness, fulfillment,
and power. (John MacArthur).” We will
break these up and look at each on different days beginning with “worthiness”
in our SD for today.
Worthiness: (2
Thess. 1:11b): “that our God will count
you worthy of your calling.”
We want to discuss two different ways in which worthiness
can be used. First of all Paul speaks of
a worthy call and this is an effectual call to salvation which is something we
discussed in our SD yesterday. This call
is given by the Holy Spirit to those whom the Father chose in eternity past,
and those the Son died to purchase on the cross. Now once a person has been called and placed
into the body of Christ they need to begin a worthy walk with the Lord, a walk that
is in obedience with the Word of God.
John MacArthur writes the following: “The Bible lists several components
of the worthy walk. A worthy walk is a
walk in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:24; Gal. 5:16, 25), humility (Eph. 4:2), purity
(Rom. 13:13; Eph. 5:3), contentment (1 Cor. 7:17), faith (2 Cor. 5:7),
righteousness (Eph. 2:10), unity (Eph. 4:3; Phil. 1:27), gentleness (Eph. 4:2),
patience (Col. 1:11), love (Eph. 5:2), joy (Col. 1:11), thankfulness (Col.
1:12), light (Eph. 5:8-9), knowledge (Col. 1:10), wisdom (Eph. 5:15), truth (3
John 3, 4), and faithfulness(Col. 1:10).
In short, ‘The one who says he abides in Hi ought himself to walk in the
same manner as He walked’ (1 John 2:6), because that pleases God (1Thess.
4:1). Paul prayed that God would enable
them to manifest the spiritual virtues that would make them worthy to be called
Christians.”
Now we need to back up to the beginning of this verse we
are looking at to understand some more things from it. Paul writes “our God” in this portion of
verse eleven, and this reminds his readers that God is no a distant, indifferent
tyrant, but a tender, caring Father. I
know that when I have sin in my life that there are times when that is the way
that I look at God, and I know that this is the wrong way, but because of my
humanness I tend to look at God that way.
God does not change and for that I am very thankful, and if He says that
I am forgiven then He will not change His mind.
Now I want to write more about this effectual call that
God gives to those He chose in eternity past, or at least quote MacArthur again
“God takes sinners, worth only of death (Rom. 1:32), and makes them worthy of
His kingdom by imputing Christ’s righteousness to them (2 Cor. 5:21).” When some think about this they say that God
is not fair, for if He were fair He would allow people to make their own
minds. The problem is that when Adam and
Eve sinned they plunged the entire human race into sinfulness, and when we look
at it the whole universe has been changed because of sin as Paul writes about
in Romans chapter eight. Because of
their sin and I am speaking of Adam’s sin all of his descendents are born
sinners and are deserving of eternal death, but out of all who are deserving of
death God chose some for salvation. This
was entirely up to God who certainly has the right to do this, but I would say
impossible for us to understand. Paul
writes about this in Romans chapters 9-11.
Now as far as the word “count…worth” MacArthur writes that
it could also be translated “make worthy.
“Either sense is appropriate here, for God makes worthy those whom He
counts worthy.
These are very difficult things to understand and I
cannot help but believe that when Peter wrote of some of the difficult things
that Paul wrote about this was one of them.
“15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our
beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as
also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to
understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the
rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I know that the
list of things I am to do is a very long one in order for me to walk worthy of
the Lord, but by God’s grace I will continue to do them.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to go down two verses from our 2 Peter
quote for this portion of my SD today: “18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of
eternity. Amen.”
Memory verses for the
week: Colossians 3:5-10.
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 has come upon
the sons of disobedience; 7 and in them you 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
Answer to yesterdays Bible
question: “Samson” (Judges 5:15-17).
Today’s Bible
question: “Which book and chapter
records Jesus’ ascension?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/6/2014 10:35 AM
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