SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/15/2017
9:47 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 Intro
to Colossians 3:18-4:1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Col.
3:18-4:1
Message of the
verses: “18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is
fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands,
love your wives and do not be embittered against them. 20 Children, be obedient to
your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate
your children, so that they will not lose heart. 22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are
your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please
men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do your
work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the
Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom
you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong
which he has done, and that without partiality.
1 Masters,
grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master
in heaven.”
I really like the title that John MacArthur gives to this
14th chapter in his commentary on the book of Colossians “The New
Man Makes a New Home.” We have been
talking about the old man and then the new man and now we will be talking about
the different persons who are in this new man’s home.
The word “amorality” according to John MacArthur means
that “man apart from God has no absolute moral or ethical standards to regulate
his behavior.” He goes on to talk about
the next problem that man has and that is “anonymity.” Man does not know who he is or why he is
here, and yes that is a very large problem for man to have. In spite of having a Bible that tells man
exactly where he came from and also what he is doing here on planet earth man
still struggles with knowing where he came from and why he is here on planet
earth. The last word MacArthur uses to
describe man’s problem is “Alienated.”
Francis Schaeffer writes “the fall alienated man not only from God, but
also from himself and from other people.”
As we look at these three words which describe three
major problems man has they get their roots in man’s separation from God which
happened in the 3rd chapter of Genesis. “People are characterized by amorality or
immorality because apart from God there can be no absolute moral
standards. They are then doomed to moral
relativism and situational ethics.”
Man also faces emptiness because they live apart from
God, as they feel trapped in an impersonal universe. I suppose that is why we have so many space
shows on TV and at the movies to show that man is not alone in the universe,
but that too if folly as Solomon likes to use that word.
Now once a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ
these three problems cease to exist. We
see an absolute moral standard in the Word of God for man to follow, and that
standard is rooted in the very nature of God.
Believers become a child of God and so they are no longer
anonymous. Believers do not suffer from
alienation or loneliness because they are now beloved children of God.
We will continue looking at this introduction in our next
SD.
5/15/2017 10:10 PM
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