SPRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/21/2018
12:51 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Study and
Pray
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 20:32
Message of the
verses: “32 “And now I commend you to God and to the word of His
grace, which is able to
build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are
sanctified.”
We have been stressing the importance of the
undershepherd and his role in the church in our previous SD’s. We have stated that in order for the undershepherd
to fulfill his role as an effective Pastor that he must stay in the Word of
God, and as we see here he must also be a persistent prayer warrior. One of the things that believers, including
Pastors and other church leaders is trying to do things on their own, and that
means they are doing it in the flesh, and this will never be pleasing to the
Lord. That is why it is important to
stay in the Word of God each and every day and praying that God will grant us
His wisdom in order to do what it is that He wants us to do. I have mentioned in many of my Spiritual
Diaries what I believe that Ephesians 2:10 says to me: “For we are His workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would
walk in them.” I believe that in
eternity past as this verse states that God gave His elect things to do and I
also believe that we are to ask the Lord to show us what those things that He
has planned for us to do so that we can do them. Just as salvation is a gift from God and can
never be earned, and if it could be earned then God would not receive glory, so
is doing the work of God once we are saved something that He has planned in
eternity past so when we do it in the power of the Holy Spirit, then Christ is
the One who will receive glory for what we do as we are not doing it in the
flesh.
Acts 6:4 reads “"But we will devote ourselves to
prayer and to the ministry of the word."
This speaks of what the apostles were to do in order to understand what
God wanted them to do in order to spread the Word so that the church could
grow. They did not do things in their
own power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Paul was a man of prayer and it was Paul’s desire and
practice to commend believers to God as seen in many of his letters. John MacArthur writes “There is no substitute
for prayer, for prayer acknowledges dependence on God and lines us up with His purposes. Prayer also allows God to glorify Himself by
answering (John 14:13). Without it the
undershepherds’ attempts to feed, lead, and guard the flock will be in
vain. Good intentions, good ideas, or
good programs cannot overcome the effects of prayerlessness.”
We have mentioned that studying the Word is important in
this SD and many other Spiritual Diaries, and we also mentioned that the reason
that I named my blogs 2 Timothy 2:15 was because it speaks of the necessity of
studying God’s Word. With that we will
end this SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jesus Christ” (Acts 3:6).
Today’s Bible
question: “After the resurrection, how
many days was Jesus seen by the Apostles?
Answer in our next SD.
7/21/2018 1:10 PM
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