SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/15/2017
11:27 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Scope of
the Ministry
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
1:25b
Message of the
verse: “that I might fully carry out
the preaching of the word of God,”
I suppose that one of the things in my life that I truly
love is the preaching of the Word of God by someone who has taken the time to
explain well what they have learned from God as the preach and teach the Word
of God. I have been fortunate to go to
churches where the Word of God has been taught in a way that I can understand
and learn from it. I have only set under
four preachers in my 43 years of being a believer and three of those preachers
have taught me much while the other one hardly anything at all. As one reads the letters that Paul has
written along with the last half of the book of Acts one can tell the passion
that Paul had for preaching the Word of God and also for writing the Word of
God so we can read it even in today’s world.
Paul says the following in Acts 20:24 “"But I do not
consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the
ministry which I
received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the
grace of God.” The 20th
chapter of Acts actually reads like a letter from Paul as he is speaking to the
Ephesian believers for the very last time.
Let us look at verse 27 “"For I did not shrink from declaring to
you the whole purpose of God.” Paul
writes to Timothy in the very last letter he wrote that is found in the New
Testament, 2 Tim. 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the
course, I have kept the faith.” In a way
this reminds me of what our Lord did, why He came to earth to die for our sins,
and I know that Paul could not have done that but Paul did have a job to do as
He was commissioned by our Lord and when he wrote to Timothy he realized that
his job was almost done as soon he would be killed for the cause of
Christ.
Paul, like all believers was or is given a job from the Lord
and as believers we, like Paul have to try and understand what He desires for
us to do and then go out and do that job through the power of the Spirit of
God. We need to do the job that Christ
has called us to do. Some are actually
trying to win the world and that will not happen. I continue to mention Ephesians 2:10 “For we
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
This verse shows me that God has a plan for my life and I am to do what
is in that plan for my life by the power of the Holy Spirit and by
understanding the Word of God through personal Bible study and by being in a
church where the Word of God is taught.
We cannot all be Paul’s who actually had a big part in
reaching the entire world at that time as his ministry ended up in Rome and
before that he traveled throughout most of the Roman Empire preaching and
teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Think about Jesus who never left Palestine, and yet no one has come
remotely close to having the impact on the world that He has. MacArthur adds “Jesus’ ministry was effective
because He limited it to doing what God wanted.” We will discuss more about His
ministry in our next SD from this section.
2/15/2017 11:48 PM
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