SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/9/2018
8:06 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Content”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 17:2b-3,
11
Message
of the verses: “and for three
Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and giving
evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and
saying, "This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ."… 11
Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received
the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether
these things were so.”
We left off in our last SD by asking
a question “How can a Christian know God’s Word well enough to use it
effectively?” We stated that we will
give three ways which will help answer this question.
During my prayer time each morning
there are some things that I do before actually bringing my petitions before
the Lord, and the first thing is to ask the Lord to search my heart to see if
there is anything that I have done that is sinful so that I can confess it
before the Lord. “23 Search me, O God,
and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).” Peter also writes something similar in 1
Peter 2:1-2 “1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy
and envy and all slander, 2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the
word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
Next we must learn that Bible study
must be diligent, something that Paul wrote to his beloved son in the Lord,
Timothy: “Study to show yourself
approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the
word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).” We can
also learn this from verse 11 of Acts 17, a verse we are looking at in these
past few SD’s. I remember that when I
was a much younger man that we were taught that if we prayed over the Bible
about a problem that we were having and then just randomly opened up the Bible
that God would give us an answer. This
is not the kind of Bible study that Paul is writing to Timothy about.
Thirdly, after we learn truths from
the Word of God believers must be committed to practicing the truths that are
learned. I remember a friend of mine who
was a life time missionary in Brazil, and we use to email each other a
lot. I use to send some of my Spiritual
Diaries to him and he called them nuggets, like golden nuggets. He would tell me to keep on sending those
nuggets of truth to him. James tells us
in 1:22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who
delude themselves.”
John MacArthur writes about the
fourth and last part of this answer to our question about Bible study: “Finally, an excellent way to learn the truth
is to teach it to others (2 Tim. 2:2).
We retain far more of what we study to teach others than of what we
learn for our own benefit.
“The Old Testament believer Ezra is
an example for Christians to follow.
According to Ezra 7:10, he ‘set his heart to study the law of the Lord
and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have
named my blog 2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman
that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” That is my desire, and according to our third
point which tells us to share it that is what I am doing as I put my Spiritual
Diaries onto my blog each day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Keep on
studying the Word of God, and to live out the truths that I learn along with
sharing it.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “The
shadow of the sundial went back ten degrees” (2 Kings 20:8-10).
Today’s
Bible question: “Who gave unto s the
earnest of the Spirit?”
Answer
in our next SD.
5/9/2018
8:34 AM
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