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
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