PT-1 Mysticism (Col. 2:18-19)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2017 10:14 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                   Focus:  PT-1 “Mysticism”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Colossians 2:18-19

            Message of the verses:  “18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.”

            We have been looking at legalism in our last few Spiritual Diaries and now we move on to look at mysticism and John MacArthur defines this as “the pursuit of a deeper or higher subjective religious experience.  It is the belief that spiritual reality is perceived apart from the human intellect and natural senses.  It looks for truth internally, weighing feelings, intuition, and other internal sensations more heavily than objective, observable, external data.  Mysticism ultimately derives its authority from a self-actualized, self-authenticated light rising from within.  This irrational and anti-intellectual approach is the antithesis of Christian theology.”  Ok now that we got a pretty good working definition of this word we will move on and look at it in the context of these verses from the pen of Paul to the Colossian believers.  We know that this letter that Paul wrote refutes the false teaching that is going on by the false teacher who have come into the Colossian church as they claimed a mystical union with God.  As I said Paul refutes them and he exhorts the Colossians not to allow these false teachers to “keep defrauding” them of their “prize.”  I believe that the prize that Paul is speaking of is the one believers can earn while on earth living for Christ and then given to them in what the Bible calls “The Judgment Seat of Christ.”  It seems like the false teachers had assumed the role of spiritual referees and so disqualified the Colossians for not abiding by their rules.  Now that sounds like what the Pharisees did to Christ, and just as that was wrong, so is this wrong.

            John MacArthur writes “Self-abasement” “translates tapeinophrosune, which is usually rendered ‘humility.’  The NASB emphasizes the negative use of the term in the present context.  The humility of the Colossian errorists was a false humility.  They were delighting in it, meaning their supposed humility was nothing but ugly pride.  It was like that of Uriah Heep, one of the most contemptible characters of English literature, who said, ‘I am well aware that I am the ‘umblest person going’ (chapter     16 of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield).”

            This false humility was a minor problem with these false teachers as they also would engage in “the worship of the angels,” thus denying the truth that there is ‘one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’ (1 Timothy 2:5).

            We know that the Colossian church was located in modern day Turkey what was called Asia Minor, and the other name where it was located is called the Phrygian region, where Laodicea was also located.  John MacArthur quotes a couple of men, that I will name and also quote as MacArthur writes “Commentator William Hendriksen notes that in A. D. 363 a church synod was held in Colossae’s sister city of Laodicea.  It declared, ‘It is not right for Christians to abandon the church of God and go away to invoke angels.”  He then goes on to quote an early Church Father named Theodoret who wrote “commenting on Colossians 2:18, wrote ‘The disease which St. Paul denounces, continued for a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia’ (cited in Hendriksen, p. 126).  The archangel Michel was worshiped in Asia Minor as late as A. D. 739.  He was also given credit for miraculous cures.” 

            As believers in Jesus Christ we know that the Bible forbids the worship of angels as Jesus told Satan in Matthew 4:10 “"Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’"” 

            In our study of the book of Isaiah we looked at Isaiah 6:1-4 which shows that the angels worship God:

“1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory." 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.”

            We will continue looking at other passages that speak of this subject in our next SD.

3/31/2017 10:47 PM

           

PT-1 "The Fellowship of Future Glory" (John 17:24a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2017 12:03 PM

My Worship Time                                          Focus: PT-1 “The Fellowship of Future Glory”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  John 17:24a

            Message of the verses:  “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am.”

            As we look at this first part of verse 24 we see what is the very last petition of the High Priestly Prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is His desire for all who are His, those that the Father has given to Him will be with Him forever.

            Think about this request in a human perspective and ask yourself it this could ever be true humanly speaking, and of course the answer is no.   In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he wrote to them saying “not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” and he was talking about those whom God had chosen for salvation.  Paul also tells us

“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).”

            One more verse to show us how bad off former believers were is seen in Romans 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”  We were enemies of God, not a good thing for sure.

            Whenever we witness to a person there are times when that person will tell you how good they are and that they are good enough to enter into heaven, and in that case we have to make sure that they know that they are as bad off as they can be, that is what total depravity is, not that a person is as bad as they can be, but they are as bad off as they can be.  So we have to make sure they realize they are lost before they can be saved.  Paul writes in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as this is a part of the bad news.

            The good news is seen in Ephesians 2:4-7:

“4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

            When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour things happen to him at that very moment, and one of those things that happens to him is that he is adopted into the family of God as Paul wrote of in Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5; and Eph 1:5, and this truth prompted the apostle John to write the following in 1 John 3:1 “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”  MacArthur writes “The glorification of believers in heaven is the ultimate goal of the plan of salvation:  ‘29  For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified (Rom. 8:29-30).”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful, that although I do not deserve to be called a child of God, that through His love, grace, and mercy, along with being adopted into His family I can truly say that I a glad that I am a part of the family of God.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To live like I am a child of God.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “His hand” (Exodus 14:27).

Today’s Bible question:  “What are the things that ought and not be?” (Hint look in James chapter three.)

Answer in our next SD.

3/31/2017 12:31 PM

 

Intro to John 17:24-26

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2017 9:05 AM

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus:  Intro to John 17:24-26

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 17:24-26

            Message of the verses:  “24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25  "O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; 26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."”

            John MacArthur entitles this last section in the 17^th chapter of John “Jesus Prays for All Believers—PT-2: That They Would One Day Be Reunited in Glory.”  That, too me is a wonderful promise.  In today’s SD we begin the last section of our journey through the most magnificent prayer found in all of Scripture, a chapter that gives its readers an opportunity to listen in on a inter-Trinitarian conversation, (be it one sided) between the Son of God praying to the Father.  We have looked at Jesus praying for Himself, praying for His disciples, and now we look at the last part of Jesus praying for all believers who would hear the words of salvation that began with those eleven disciples.  I can honestly say that I will miss studying this chapter once we are finished with it.

            I wish to begin by talking about a story that John MacArthur tells at the beginning of his commentary on this section, a story that can cause toes to be stepped on.  He went to the former Soviet Union, to a very isolated eastern city there and had the opportunity to speak to some 1500 believers that were so poor that it took a day’s work just to put food on the table.  Their greatest concern was to learn about their future in heaven, which he spoke to them for several hours.  The words that he spoke to them were from the Word of God and these impoverished people had tears of joy streaming down their cheeks as they listened to what heaven will be like for them one day.

            How about those of us who live in the West who are living at worst so much better than the people of that story; How often do we think about heaven.  Yes when things get hard or when a love one is about to enter into the presence of Christ do we think about heaven, but in all honesty is that enough?  The old song that says “Everybody talkin’ ‘bout heaven ain’t goin’ there,” it is also true that everybody going to heaven is not talking about it.

            MacArthur writes “When the church loses its focus on heaven, it becomes self-indulgent and self-centered, materialistic and worldly, spiritually weak and lethargic.  The pleasures and comforts of this present world consume too much of it time and energy.  Believers forget that this world is not their true home, that they are ‘aliens and strangers’ (1 Peter. 2:11; cf. Heb. 11:13) here, that their ‘citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil 3:20), and that ‘here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come’ (Heb. 13:14).  The church is increasingly in danger not of being so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good, but rather of being so earthly minded that it is no heavenly good.

            “A worldly minded church is the result of a disobedient church.  The Lord Jesus Christ commanded His followers, ‘Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there you heart will be also’ (Matt. 6:20-21).  ‘Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ,’ Paul wrote, ‘keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God’ (Col. 3:1).  The apostle John warned believers,

‘15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.’”

            Now as we think about this subject of heaven we can turn to a couple of passages that show us that some godly men from both the Old and New Testaments longed to go to heaven to be with their Lord.  “In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever (Psalm 16:11b),” written by David. Philippians 1:23, written by Paul, “But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.”  Paul also wrote “to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord,” in 2 Corinthians 5:8.”  As we look at that verse we realize that once a believer leaves this body in either death or those who are raptured that they will immediately be with the Lord, for there is no “soul sleep” or purgatories as some teach which teachings are not found in Scripture. 

            Paul wrote the following very near the end of his life which is found in 2 Timothy 4:6-8

“6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; 8 in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

            Why then should believer long for heaven?  Everything that is precious to us will be their including all of our family and friends who are believers will be there.  We will get to rub shoulders with people like Abraham, like Moses, like David, and then others like Daniel, and Elijah.  We can ask questions to these great OT saints, like asking Daniel what it was like to spend a night in a cage with those hungry lions.  We can talk to Paul, and Timothy, John and the other Apostles like Peter, James to mention a few.  However the most wonderful thing about heaven will be that we will be in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ forever.

            MacArthur concludes this introduction by writing “The reality that believers will be reunited in heaven with Christ and each other is the subject of the last part of the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer.  Verses 24-26 describe the fellowship of future glory, the focus of future glory, and the foretaste of future glory.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The story that John MacArthur told causes me to think about my life in a way that I have thought about before, and need to think about more frequently.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Keep my priorities in the right order.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Daniel.”

Today’s Bible Question:  “To restore the Red Sea, what did Moses stretch over the water?”

Answer in our next SD.

3/30/2017 9:51 AM

PT-3 Legalism (Col. 2:16-17)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/29/2017 9:19 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                        Focus:  PT-3 Legalism

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Colossians 2:16-17

            Message of the verses:  “16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

            We have been talking about legalism for these past two Spiritual Diaries, and we continue to talk about this in our SD for today, as we talk about the Sabbath day.  Now we know that the Jewish people worship on the Sabbath day which is Saturday, and this is a part of what is in their law.  However the Colossian believers were not Jewish, but were Gentiles and so the Gentile believers worshiped the Lord on the Lord’s Day, which is Sunday because this is the day that Christ arose from the dead.  When we studying the book of Revelations a couple of years ago we read the following about the apostle John who wrote “10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” John was worshiping the Lord on the first day of the week even though he was probably the only one who was at this worship service.  Now as we think about the Jews worshiping on the Sabbath day we must remember that even after the Jews came to Christ that some of them still worshipped on the Sabbath day, but it is possible that many of them began to worship on the Lord’s Day as well.  You see that Sunday was a day when many of the Jews worked, as it was like a regular work day for them so it would have been difficult for them to worship on the Lord’s Day.  However that was for the Jews not the Gentiles and we can see that the false teachers were trying to bring these types of things into the Gentile church telling them that they needed to do this as a part of their salvation.  Before we move on I want to quote one more verse to show that the early church meet on the Lord’s Day:  “7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight.”

            We have been looking at a number of items that John MacArthur writes about in his commentary to show “There is convincing evidence for that in Scripture,” that worship on the Sabbath for NT believers is not binding in the New Covenant.  Since we have looked at the first three reasons already I want to move onto the fourth reason “we find no hint in the Old Testament that God expected the Gentile nations to observe the Sabbath, nor are they ever condemned for failing to do so.”  The Jews in the OT were suppose to be different than the Gentile nations in order for the Gentile nations to see this difference and then because of it have a desire to know the God that the Jews worshiped. 

            The fifth “there is no evidence of anyone’s keeping the Sabbath before the time of Moses, nor are there any commands to keep the Sabbath before the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.”  I think some get this mixed up because of the creation week where God rested on the last day of the week, but did not require people to do this until the law was given.

            Sixth, “the Jerusalem Council did not impose Sabbath keeping on the Gentile believers (Acts 15).

            Seventh, “Paul warned the Gentiles about many different sins in his epistles, but never about breaking the Sabbath.”

            Eight, “Paul rebuked the Galatians for thinking God expected them to observe special days including the Sabbath) (Gal. 4:10-11).”

            Ninth, “Paul taught that keeping the Sabbath was a matter of Christian liberty (Rom. 14:5).”

            Tenth, the early church Fathers, from Ignatius to Augustine, taught that the Old Testament Sabbath had been abolished and that the first day of the week (Sunday) was the day when Christians should meet for worship.  That disproves the claim of some that Sunday worship was not instituted until the fourth century.”

            Now as we look at verse seventeen we read “17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”  All of things that we have been looking at are but a shadow of the things that were to come, however they were fulfilled in Christ.  The book of Hebrews is a good example of the OT laws were a shadow of what Christ fulfilled and many commentaries on Hebrews have that word shadow in their title.  MacArthur gives us a few examples of things that were shadows that Christ fulfilled.  John 6:41 “Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, "I am the bread that came down out of heaven."”  1 Corinthians 5:7 teaches us “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.”  MacArthur writes “What justification could there be for demanding that Gentiles observe the Sabbath when God has granted them eternal rest (Heb. 4:11)?  Any continuing preoccupation with the shadows once the reality has come is pointless.

            “Paul’s point is simple:  true spirituality does not consist merely of keeping external rules, but of having an inner relationship with Jesus Christ.”

3/29/2017 9:58 PM

           

The Result of True Unity (John 17:21c, 23b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/29/2017 9:30 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  “The Result of True Unity”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  John 17:21c, 23b

            Message of the verses:  “so that the world may believe that You sent Me…so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

            What does the observable unity of the church authenticate?  This answer is found in these verses and it is a two part answer.  First thing we see that it gives evidence to the world in order that it may believe that the Father sent the Son.  As we look back to what Christ was about to do on the cross we know that those who had Him crucified did not realize that He was sent to the world by the Father.  Now as we look at this highlighted phrase we know that it is a familiar phrase and this phrase summarizes the plan of redemption.  God sent His Son into the world to provide salvation, to seek and to save those who were lost as Luke 19:10 tells us.  In his commentary John MacArthur points out that this is seen many times in the gospel of John:  “3:34; 4:34; 5:23, 24, 30, 36, 37, 38; 6:29, 38, 39, 44, 57; 7:16, 18, 28, 29, 33; 8:16, 18, 26, 29, 42; 9:4; 10:36; 11:42; 12:44, 45, 49; 13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; 17:3, 8, 25; 20:21.  Jesus prayed that the visible unity of His church would convince many in the world concerning His divine mission of redemption.  The church’s unity is the foundation of its evangelism; it demonstrates that Christ is the Savior who transforms lives (cf. John 13:35).”  “"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."”

            Now the second thing that the church’s unity does is that it authenticates the Father’s love for believers.  Now, to me, we are getting into some difficult things to understand, not that the Father loves all believers, but something that I have heard in a sermon by John MacArthur that goes along with this topic.  He stated that you will not find, but one time, that Jesus prays for unbelievers, and that one time is when He was dying on the cross and said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”  This was a rather stunning revelation to me.  I have a book written by Arthur Pink, and his books are very hard to read, at least for me.  The book is entitled “The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross.”  In this book he has a whole chapter on this saying from Luke 23:34 But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.”  I don’t have time to go into what he has to say about it, but as mentioned MacArthur states that this is the only time in the gospels that we see Jesus praying for unbelievers.  I guess that we all need to think about that statement.  We see Jesus in this 17^th chapter of John praying for Himself, then for His disciples, and then for us.   We have seen him come into confrontation with the “Jews” many times in the gospels, and especially we have seen it in the gospel of John.  Now as I am trying to better understand this I think about what Paul does in his letter to the Colossians who had some false teachers in their midst trying to change the minds of believers telling them that Christ alone was not enough for their salvation, sanctification, and their victory, they needed more.  Paul just told them truth in his letter to them, and the Spirit of God uses truth to convict people of their sins, but believers and unbelievers alike.  Jesus told those He came into contact with the truth and for the most part many of them rejected the truth and so they crucified Him.

            Ok enough of the rabbit trails as we need to concentrate on this second important reality of what unity of the church authenticates, which as stated is that it authenticates the Father’s love for believers.  When an unbeliever sees believers’ love for each other it gives them proof that the Father has loved the ones who have believed that Jesus is His Son.  As one reads through the early chapters of the book of Acts this love is surely seen as we read that the Lord was adding daily to the church, and we can believe that unbelievers who became believers in that time surely saw the love that these believers had for each other because the Father loved them.

            Now on the other hand if a church does not demonstrate this kind of unity the world surely can see that too.  MacArthur writes “where there are carnal divisions, strife, backbiting, and quarreling in the church, it drives unbelievers away.  Why would they want to be part of such a hypocritical group that is at cross-purposes with itself?  The effectiveness of the church’s evangelism is devastated by dissension and disputes among its members.

            “It must be the goal of everyone who is part of the body of Christ through faith in Him to do their part in maintaining the full visibility of the unity that believers possess, as Paul wrote:

‘1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3  being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to say that the first 25 years that I attended my first church after I became a believer you could see the kind of unity that we are talking about here, and then it ended as there were two church splits, and in the second one I had to leave after being there for 32 years.  It was during the first split that the Lord gave me the opportunity to lead some 18 of my neighbors to the Lord and when I took some of them to church one of them told me that it seemed to her that she walked into a family argument.  That was one of the darkest times in my spiritual life to hear that.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  What is seen in Ephesians 4:1-3 written above.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Martha” (Luke 10:40).

Today’s Bible question:  “From which old testament book did Jesus quote in Matthew 24 which reference to the Great Tribulation?”

Answer in our next SD.

3/29/2017 10:18 AM

 

PT-2 "Legalism" (Col. 2:16-17)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/28/2017 8:15 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                     Focus:  PT-2 “Legalism”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Colossians 2:16-17

            Message of the verses:  “16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

            When God created man, man was perfect in his communion with God and had a desire to worship God because he knew that God had created him and therefore he knew that He was his God.  When sin entered into mankind through Adam and Eve’s fall man still had a desire to worship, but because of his sinful nature he could not worship God in the way that God desired him to worship.  Now because man still has a desire to worship, man comes up with rules and regulations to fulfill this need, and fulfilling this worship in the wrong way was one of the great concerns of Paul.  In Titus 1:14 and 15 Paul tells Titus to make sure that those under his care should 14 “not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.”  MacArthur writes “Romans 14-15 and 1 Corinthians 8-10 also discuss Christian liberty and the only legitimate reason for restraining it:  to protect a weaker Christian brother or sister.”

            Now we have gone over before in our study of Colossians what these false teachers were trying to tell the Colossian believers and that is that Christ was not enough that He was only the beginning and they needed to add to what He had done for them in their salvation and their growth or sanctification.  In the OT book of Leviticus chapter eleven we learn about food and drink as a part of the dietary laws and this may have been where these false teachers got this idea of food and drink.  However we know that Christ fulfilled the Law and the Colossians were under the New Covenant thus the dietary laws of the Old Covenant were no longer in force as Jesus made clear in the seventh chapter of the gospel of Mark:

“14  After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, "Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. 16 [["If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."]] 17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. 18 And He said to them, "Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?" (Thus He declared all foods clean.)”

            In the tenth chapter of the book of Acts Peter sees a vision three times in which he saw all kind of animals that Jewish people were not to eat because of the dietary laws.  Peter tell whom is talking to him in the vision that he had never eaten these, but was told to rise, kill and eat.  Peter was getting a message that the OT laws were not the same in the New Testament since Christ had fulfilled these Laws while on the earth.  Now to be sure this was more than about dietary laws for Peter as he would soon go into a Gentile’s house, which was also not legal for a Jew to do and it was there that he would lead the first Gentiles to Christ.  Things were indeed different since Christ fulfilled the OT Law.

            One more thing to discuss in this SD and that is what Paul writes about “festival and new moon.”  The Jews had many annual Jewish celebrations like Passover, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Lights.  They would offer sacrifices on these days as the OT Law required along with the new moon which was the first day of the month.  The Jews had two different calendars, one was for their festivals and the other was political in nature.  Their calendar consists of 30 day months and I am not sure what they did with the extra five days that are on our Julian calendar as there are 365 and ¼ days in our calendar as we add one full day on the 29^th of February every four years calling it leap year.  At any rate Paul is saying that these celebrations are not to be celebrated anymore as they too were a part of the OT Law which Christ fulfilled.  The false teachers were undoubtedly trying to cause these believers to add these in their worship.

3/28/2017 8:50 PM  

PT-4 "The Representation of True Unity" (John 17:21b-23a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/28/2017 8:03 AM

My Worship Time                                              Focus: PT-4 “The Representation of True Unity”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 17:21b-23a

            Message of the verse:  “even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity,”

            “The unique intra-Trinitarian relationship of Jesus and the Father forms the pattern for the unity of believers in the church.  This prayer reveals five features of that unity the church imitates.”  (John MacArthur)  With that said we want to begin this SD by looking at feature number four which is “the Father and the Son are united in holiness.”

            When we studied the attributes in Sunday school class we learned that above all God is holy and thus all of His attributes are holy.  Jesus addressed the father in verse eleven as “Holy Father,” and again as we will see in verse twenty-five as “righteous Father,” and as we study the Old and New Testaments we see the holiness of God in many places.  John MacArthur writes “God’s holiness is His absolute separation from sin.  In Habakkuk 1:13 the prophet declared, ‘Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness with favor.’”   Let us look at Isaiah 6:3 and then Revelation 4:8 “3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."”  “8 And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME."”  This is something that goes on continually in heaven.

            I believe that the Bible teaches us that when believers pursue holiness that this will draw unbelievers to them so that they can find out more about who God is and what is going on with the people in the church.  I received a text from our Pastor last night asking me along with some other men to meet at the church at 6:30 this morning to pray for the lives of two women who had first come to our church last summer to bring their kids to a basketball program.  The gospel was presented each practice and each game and so the holiness of it was beginning to do a work in their hearts.  Hard times came upon them and they came back to the church last Sunday.  We meet to pray for their salvation and for their release from the bondage of sin that they have.  In my study of Colossians in the evening I am learning that Paul spoke the truth about different things that are found in the Scriptures that these people were not following, knowing that the truth will set them free.  He did not at that point talk to them about their sinful lifestyle for it is evident that some may not even be believers.  It is our job to speak the truth in love and to live holy lives so that the Holy Spirit can do a work in their lives as we pray for people whom the Lord brings into contact with us.

            The fifth feature is “the Father and the Son are united in love,” which we can see in verse 24 “24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”  John 5:20a states “"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing;”   At the baptism of Jesus and also at the transfiguration God the Father declared Jesus to be His beloved Son.  MacArthur writes “Similarly, love is the glue that binds believers together in unity (Col. 3:14; cf. 2:2), and it is that love for one another that is the church’s ultimate apologetic to the lost world (John 13:34-35).

            “Though not to the same infinite divine extent, the spiritual life and power that belongs to the Trinity belongs also in some way to believers and is the basis for the church’s unity.  This is what the Lord meant when He said, ‘The glory which you have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity.’ That stunning truth describes believers as those to whom the Son has given glory—that is, aspects of the very divine life that belongs to God.  The church’s task is to so live as to not obstruct that glory (Matt. 5:16).”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To show love to others so that the Holy Spirit can do a work in their lives that will save them from their sin.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord as I am doing a couple of things that take me outside of my comfort zone.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Ur of the Chaldees” (Genesis 11:31).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who complained that her sister left her to serve alone?”

Answer in our next SD.

3/28/2017 8:40 AM

PT-1 "Legalism" (Col. 2:16-17)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/27/2017 10:08 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                        Focus:  PT-1 Legalism

Bible Reading & Meditation                                               Reference:  Colossian 2:16-17

            Message of the verses:  “16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

            I have mentioned earlier that I am reading a book by John MacArthur entitled “Slave” and that book has taught me a lot about the fact that in reality a believer is a slave to God.  Now there is a picture in the Old Testament of what all people are which is slaves to sin.  The children of Israel when they were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years by ruthless dictator’s shows us what a person is when they are born, and that is being a slave to the cruel master of sin, which is called the sin nature.  We are as bad off in our relationship with God as we can be because being born with the sin nature making us slaves to sin. When Moses, through the work of God who showed the rulers of Egypt that He was indeed the One True God because of the miracles that He did caused the people of Israel to be free from their bondage of their sinful masters the children of Israel actually became slaves to the Lord who is a completely different kind of Master.  I believe that this pictures the new birth when a person accepts the salvation that Christ offers through the good news of the gospel and so we are no longer slaves of sin but slaves of God.  I realize that the word “slave” or “slavery” is a word that brings about a lot of difficult thoughts, but being a slave to God is the best thing that a person can be.  As mentioned this happens through the word of Jesus Christ on the cross who has provided complete salvation, complete forgiveness, and complete victory as we learned when we studied verses 11-15 in our last section.  Now if we have been completely saved, forgiven, and have complete victory in Christ why would we want to add something to this, and when we add something to this it is called “legalism” which is what these two verses speak of.  John MacArthur states “Legalism is the religion of human achievement.  It argues that spiritually is based on Christ plus human works.  It makes conformity to man-made rules the measure of spirituality.”  Paul argues this in these two verses.

            John MacArthur quotes a man named Gardiner Spring in his commentary, and Spring is a man that I have read in the past in my study of the books of Thessalonians when MacArthur quoted from him there.  Gardner Spring writes the following and with that we will end this SD.

“A merely moral man may be very scrupulous of duties he owes to his fellowmen, while the infinitely important duties he owes to God are kept entirely out of sight.  Of loving and serving God, he knows nothing.  Whatever he does or whatever he leaves undone, he does nothing for God.  He is honest in his dealings with all except God, he robs none but God, he is thankless and faithless to none but God, he feels contemptuously, and speaks reproachfully of none but God.  A just perception and the duties which result from those relations constitute no part of his piety.  He may not only disbelieve the Scriptures, but may never read them; may not only disregard the divine authority, but every form of divine worship, and live and die as though he had no concern with God and God had not concern with him.  The character of the young man in the Gospel presents a painful and affecting view of the deficiencies of external morality (see Mt. 19:16-22).  He was not dishonest, nor untrue; he was not impure nor malignant; and not a few of the divine commands he had externally observed.  Nay, he says, ‘All these have I kept.’  Nor was his a mere sporadic goodness, but steady and uniform.  He had performed these services ‘from his youth up.’  Nor was this all.  He professed a willingness to become acquainted with his whole duty.  ‘What lack I yet?’  And yet when brought to the test, this poor youth saw that, with all his boasted morality, he could not deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Christ.”

3/27/2017 10:44 PM

 

PT-3 "The Representation of the True Unity" (John 17:21b-23a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/27/2017 12:41 PM

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  PT-3 “The Representation of the True Unity”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 17:21b-23a

            Message of the verses:  “even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity,”

            “The unique intra-Trinitarian relationship of Jesus and the Father forms the pattern for the unity of believers in the church.  This prayer reveals five features of that unity the church imitates.”  (John MacArthur)

            We begin this SD by looking at the second feature which is “the Father and the Son are united in mission.”  The common goal spoke of here is the salvation of lost sinners and also granting them eternal life, and if we go back to verses 2-4 and 6 we will see that Christ makes this clear:  “2 Even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 6 "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”

            I have mentioned this earlier in other Spiritual Diaries that God the Father, in eternity past chose a love gift for His Son that He would give to Him, and that love gift is those whom He chose for salvation.  Jesus would in turn come to come to earth to pay the price for their salvation and so we see in verse six “they were Yours and You gave them to Me,” so we see here the mission that the Father and Son had for our salvation.  I want to go back sometime and look at a sermon from John MacArthur he preached on the book of Revelation where he taught about how the Jewish wedding ceremony runs parallel with God and His Son in eternity past, along with the Son coming to earth to pay the bridal price for the bride and then coming again to consummate the wedding as seen in a picture in Matthew 25.  Eternity in the New Jerusalem also has to do with this ceremony.

            Now we as believers in the NT age are sent out by the Son to evangelize those in the world in order to have the Holy Spirit give an effectual call to those whom the Father chose in eternity past, as this is our part as Jesus ways “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world (Verse 18).”  Matthew 28:19-20 (The great commission) also goes along with this “19  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20  teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."”

            Next we look at feature number three “The Father and the Son are united in truth,” ‘The words which you gave Me, I have given to them” as seen in verse 8 and verse 14 we see that Jesus adds “I have given them Your word.”  It was earlier in that evening that Jesus told His disciples “The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works (John 14:10).”

            MacArthur writes “The church is also unified in its commitment to proclaiming the singular truth of God’s Word.  In Romans 15:5-6 Paul prayed ‘5 Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (Cf. Acts 2:42; 46; Phil. 1:27)  Far from dividing the church, a commitment to proclaiming sound doctrine is what defines it.”

            We will look at the last two features in our next SD.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “John the Baptist” (John 3:30).

Today’s Bible question:  “Where did Abraham come from originally?”

Answer in our next SD.

3/27/2017 1:09 PM    

Intro to Colossians 2:16-23

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/26/2017 9:25 PM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Intro to Colossians 2:16-23

Bible Reading & Meditation                                           Reference:  Colossians 2:16-23

            Message of the verses:  “16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. 20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!" 22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)-in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

            I want to take a short amount of time to sum up what we will be looking at in these remaining verses from the 2^nd chapter of Colossians.  When a person is born again into the family of God it is because God had chosen them in eternity past to give to His Son as a love gift, which the Son had to come to earth to pay for their salvation.  The Holy Spirit then gives and effectual call, a call that no one can say no to, to the believer who them accepts the offer that He has been given for salvation realizing that they are a sinner in need of a Saviour to save them, and so the question is asked “what kind of work was done by the person to receive the gift of salvation?”  The answer, of course is nothing.  Now in Colossians 2:6 we read “6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”  We have answered the question how we have received Christ, which is by grace through faith, nothing we have done in and of ourselves to receive Him, and so this is how we are to walk, to be sanctified.  Yes we are suppose to read our Bible, to study it, to memorize it, to meditate on it, to go to church to worship with other believers, but God is the One who then gives us the growth.  These verses tell us that there are not certain kinds of foot we eat that make us better followers of Christ, we should not worship angels in order to make us better followers of Christ, and things like these that Paul was warning his readers about.

            John MacArthur writes the following to conclude his introduction to these verses and just so you know the chapter title from his commentary is “Spiritual Intimidation.”

            “In 2:8-23, Paul mounts a frontal attack on the Colossian heresy.  He has already dealt with philosophy (2:8-10) and presented Christ’s sufficiency (2:11-15).  He continues his refutation of the Colossian heresy by dealing with legalism (2:16-17), mysticism (2:18-19), and asceticism (2:20-23).”  We begin to look at legalism in our next SD.”  3/26/2017 9:50 PM

 

PT-1 The Representation of True Unity (John 17:21b-23a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/26/2017 8:15 PM

My Worship Time                                                 Focus:  PT-1 The Representation of True Unity

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  John 17:21b-23a

            Message of the verses:  “even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity,”

            John MacArthur writes “The unique intra-Trinitarian relationship of Jesus and the Father forms the pattern for the unity of believers in the church.  This prayer reveals five features of that unity the church imitates.”  Now before we begin to look at this five features I want to look at truth that this unity of nature that Christ was praying for reflects that of the Father and the Son which can be seen in the following “You, Father, are in Me, and I in You,” as seen in verse 21b.  Now by stating this in His prayer Jesus is surely stating that He is deity as surely as the Father is.  In the fifth chapter of John after healing someone on the Sabbath Jesus got into a dialogue with the Jews who were telling Him that it was not right for Him to heal on the Sabbath.  In that dialogue beginning with verse 17 Jesus claimed to be God come in the flesh, now that is not exactly what He said, but what was implied as Jesus claimed to have the same authority, purpose, power, honor, will, and nature as the Father.  So you can see what these Jews were upset.

            Now we will begin to look at the five features of the unique intra-Trinitarian relationship that Jesus and the Father had which forms the pattern of the unity of believers in the church.

1.     “The Father and the Son are united in motive; they are equally committed to the glory of God.”  We can see this from the very beginning of this prayer in verse one “"Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You.”  Let us look at verse four “"I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.”  This shows that Jesus glorified the Father throughout His earthly ministry, and verse five adds “5  "Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”  Now let us jump ahead to verse 24 “24  "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”  This verse speaks to the Father His desire that all believers will one day be with Him.  This is a very important subject.  When a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit baptizes them into the body of Christ and then comes to live with them.  We are “in Christ!”  When a believer dies he goes immediately to be with the Lord as Paul wrote “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.”  When the rapture comes then those who have died before the rapture will receive their new bodies and believers who have not died will go directly to be with the Lord.  This is also true with the Tribulation saints who died in the Lord during the Tribulation period.  When the Kingdom comes believes will be with the Lord helping to rule during the kingdom age.  When eternity begins all believers will be with the Lord.  I suppose the question is why does He want us around?  Sometimes I truly do not feel worthy of this great promise of being with Christ for eternity.    As we have looked at the gospel of John so far we have seen Jesus bringing glory to the Father on many different occasions and just before this prayer began Jesus told His disciples “"Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; 32 if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately (John 17:31b-32).”  Now the point of these features is to show that this relationship that the Father and the Son have is will form in the church, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).”  Now we will continue looking at these features in our next SD.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘He must increase, but I must decrease?’”

Answer in our next SD.

3/26/2017 8:47 PM