SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/13/2015
7:32 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Characteristic of Precision
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
14:5a
Message of the
verse: “And no lie was found in
their mouth”
We begin the next to last look at the different
characteristics of the 144,000 men from Israel, 12,000 from each of the twelve
tribes of Israel who are meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ on Mt. Zion as seen
in the first five verses of chapter fourteen of the book of Revelation. I believe that we can all learn many things
from these characteristics that we find in these five verses, things that we
can implement into our lives as we continue to serve the Lord in difficult
times that are now going on in different places around the world.
In our evening service last night at First Baptist church
our pastor spoke of what the Supreme Court Decision on same sex message had to
do with the Word of God and even looking into the future of what it will mean
to be a Christian in the days to come.
He went to a verse from 2 Timothy 4:3-5 that we can also look at as we
look at the characteristic of precision for these 144,000 Jewish
evangelists. “3 For the time will come when they will not
endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will
accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth
and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure
hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” We are now living in a time when people want
to only have their ears tickled, and not look at what the truth of Scripture
is. The 144,000 did not have this
problem as they did not listen to the lies of Satan as the prophet Zephaniah
wrote “The remnant of Israel will do no wrong and tell no lies, nor will a
deceitful tongue be found in their mouths” (Zeph. 3:13). People today want to feel good even if it
takes lies to be believed so that they will feel good, but the truth of God’s
Word does not always make us feel good, but when applied, in the end it will
give peace to us. The 144,000 did as
Paul wrote to Timothy in the passage from above as they certainly did the work
of evangelists and they also fulfilled their ministry, and this is a good
example for us to follow in the days we are living in.
John MacArthur concludes his commentary on this section
by writing “In all generations, triumphant Christians are characterized by ‘speaking
the truth in love’ (Eph. 4:15) and ‘laying aside falsehood [and] speak[ing]
truth’ (Eph. 4:25). Knowing the vital
importance of ‘accurately handling the word of truth’ they will ‘be diligent to
present [themselves] approved to God as [workman] who [do] not need to be
ashamed’ (2 Tim. 2:15). They will never
be guilty of ‘walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God’; rather, ‘by
the manifestation of truth [they will commend themselves] to every man’s
conscience in the sight of God’ (2 Cor. 4:2).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: We live in a
world that is fast falling into the hands of the lies that Satan is telling,
and so one of the things that I need to and want to do is to fulfill what Paul
writes to Timothy and that is to do the work of an evangelist as the world will
only be changed through the preaching of the Gospel as souls are saved one at a
time.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Pray that God will bring onto my path someone
that I can talk to about what Christ has done for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Psalm 100.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What did Abraham finally
offer instead of Isaac?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/13/2015 7:55 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment