SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/30/2016 10:46 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The Pursuit of Peace”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 14:27d
Message of the verses: “Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let
it be fearful.’”
Now we come
to the portion of this verse where as we say “the rubber meets the road” as we
have to apply what we have been learning about peace in our lives. Oh you may say “I thought this was a promise,
and all we had to do is claim this promise and it will all be okay.” I suppose that if you are a believer and have
done that you already know that there is more to it than that, so we will try
and find out what the more is as we begin looking at this last section of John
14:27.
John
MacArthur writes “There is no inconsistency between Christ’s promise and His
command, however. The Bible teaches that
Christians are responsible to appropriate God’s promises. The Holy Spirit indwells and empowers
believers, but they in turn are to be filled with (Eph. 5:18) and walk in the
Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25). Christians have
been give eternal life; in response they are to ‘consider [themselves] to be
dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11) and ‘present [themselves]
to God as those alive from the dead’ (v. 13).
The Holy Spirit is their supernatural teacher (1 John 2:20-27), yet that
does not negate believers’ responsibility to study the Scriptures diligently (2
Tim. 2:15). The same apostle Paul wrote ‘I
have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me’ (Gal 2:20) and wrote ‘Therefore I run in such a way, as not
without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the ari; but I discipline my
body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself
will not be disqualified’ (1 Cor. 9:26-27).”
Ok that was
a rather long quote, but one necessary to understand that we, as believers have
a promise and we also have responsibility in having it fulfilled into our
lives. I have to say that when I was
studying the book of Mark and came to the passage where Jesus calms a storm and
then gets to the land only to meet a demoniac that is actually full of demons
and after casting them out the demons who know who He is ask Him not to put
them into the pit. Now at that point of
the story I am thinking “yes Jesus throw them into the pit so there will be
less demons around to tempt us.” Jesus
allowed them to go into the pigs who after they entered the pigs they all ran
down the hill into the lake and drowned.
One may wonder what this has to do with our passage today, but I get the
same question about this promise of peace that Jesus gives us as to why you
just don’t fill all believers with Your peace.
I guess the answer is that we have a process to go through to learn to
grow to become more like Jesus. Jesus
did what He did because no one else could have done it and now we have to do
what we do through the power of the Holy Spirit in order for us to become more
like Him after all that is part of the sanctification process.
Let us look
at some verses that may help us out “Seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:14b).” “HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT (1 Peter
3:11).” This is actually a quote from
Psalm 34:14b). “Those who love Your law
have great peace, And nothing causes them to stumble (Psalm 119:165).” “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose
mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee (Isa. 26:3 KJV).” “"The steadfast of mind You will keep in
perfect peace, Because he trusts in You (Isa. 26:3 NASB95).” “And the work of righteousness will be peace,
And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever (Isa.
32:17).” This verse links experiencing
peace with living a righteous life. In 2
Timothy 2:22 Paul tells Timothy to “pursue righteousness, faith, love and
peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” Notice that Paul
tells Timothy to pursue these different things even though we are righteous, we
do have faith, and love and peace. Peter
writes the following in 2 Peter 3:14 “Therefore, beloved, since you look for
these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.” We are seeing what our responsibilities are
as we look at these different verses. We
don’t learn from the Bible by osmosis (“a process by which
molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a
less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, thus equalizing the
concentrations on each side of the membrane.”) In other words we can’t lay our
heads on the Bible and expect to get something out of it we have to do what
Paul wrote to Timothy in 2Tim. 2:15 “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” James writes “17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering,
without hypocrisy. 18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in
peace by those who make peace.” Now I have to show you a verse that is not
really pleasant to look at as it shows us that we learn more about peace
through the discipline of the Lord “All discipline for the moment seems not to
be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards
it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:11).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I think the key to learning more about the
gift of peace that God gives us is similar to how we learn anything from the
Word of God and that is to study the Word of God, be diligent in studying the
Word of God and then apply what you learn to circumstances in your everyday
life. It’s not easy and it’s not a
sprint but a marathon.
My Steps of Faith for Today: 2 Tim. 2:15.
Memory verses for the week: (Romans 6:5-7) “5For if we have become united
with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the
likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified
with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we
would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Today’s Bible question: “How will the Day of the Lord come?”
Answer in our next SD. 11/30/2016 11:42 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment