SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/7/2017
9:56 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1 “Inheritance”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
1:12
Message of the
verses: “12 giving thanks to the
Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in
Light.”
In our last SD which was the last part of the
introduction to Colossians 1:12-14 we quoted John MacArthur who wrote “Paul
sums up the doctrine of salvation in three great truths: inheritance, deliverance, and
transference. They are both a
description of salvation and a cause for thanksgiving. He unfolds the specifics of his gratitude in
those verses.”
I may have mentioned in the SD’s on Colossians or perhaps
on the ones from my study of John that I am reading a devotional Bible from
John MacArthur who writes a small devotion before each days Bible reading, I
mostly listen to the Bible on DVD and not read it, but at any rate today’s
devotional for Jan. 7 had some things to say about salvation which is what we
are focusing in on as we look at verses 12-14 of Colossians chapter one. In today’s devotional study MacArthur talks
about an identity crisis and mentions that believers have no need to have an
identity crisis for we belong to Jesus Christ.
“Despite that bleak picture, a true sense of identity is available to
every Christian. It comes from knowing
that God himself personally selected you to be his child. Before the world began, God set his love upon
you; it was according to His plan that Christ died for you (1 Peter 1:20). That’s why you responded in faith to the
gospel (2 Thess. 2:13). Also that’s why
you can never lose your salvation. The
same God who drew you to Himself will hold you there securely (John 10:29).”
Now we will begin to look at our verse from Colossians as
we continue our SD. When we were
unbelievers God was our Judge, but now since we are one of His children we can
call Him our Father, remember the Lord’s Prayer beginning.
We are not only adopted into His family but as our verse
tells us He has also “qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in
light.” John MacArthur writes “Qualified’
is from hikanoo, a word used on here
and in 2 Corinthians 3:6 in the New Testament.
It means ‘to make sufficient, to empower, to authorize, to make fit.’ We are not qualified through our own
efforts. God has qualified us through
the finished work of Christ.”
Now since we as believers are qualified because of what
Christ has done for us, that means that before we were believers we were truly
unqualified for our inheritance. We will
look at a few verse from the book of Ephesians which helps us understand this
unqualified position we have before we became believers.
“1
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the
spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived
in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Eph. 2:1-3).”
“12 Remember that you were at that time separate from
Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the
covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Eph. 1:12).”
“17 So this I say, and affirm
together with the Lord, that you
walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their
mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God
because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their
heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to
sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness (Eph.
4:17-19).”
I
have written inside an older Bible that I have the following: “Total Depravity: Not that we are as bad as we could be, but we
are as bad off as we can be.” This is
what we were before we became believers in Jesus Christ and if someone who is
reading this has not accepted the free gift of salvation that Jesus offers that
is where you are not, but the good news is that can all be changed by
understanding that you are a sinner which you then agree with God that you are
and then trust that the Lord Jesus Christ has paid for your sins on the cross
and invite Him into you life to save you.
Those
of us who are believers can remember the time when we were not a believer how
we were dominated by the evil world system; its wicked ruler, Satan; and our
own fallen, sinful, human natures. I
have no problem in remembering this because I was very near 27 years old when
the Lord saved me almost 42 years ago this month on the 26th of Jan.
1974. I am so very thankful to the Lord
for His indescribable gift of salvation through Jesus Christ my Lord.
1/7/2017 10:30 PM
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