SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/1/2018
11:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Motive—Love
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 1:4c-5a
Message of the
verses: “In love He predestined us
to adoption as sons.”
This section shows us that God elects those who are saved
because of His Love, and we know that love is one of His attributes as John
says “God is love.” Deuteronomy 7:8
tells us “But
because the LORD loved you, and because he
would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought
you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from
the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” This
shows us why God chose Israel to be His special people, and this is the same as
He chose the church who are the family of the redeemed.
I suppose that we have gone over
what Biblical agape “love” is in the
past. Many people today do not
understand that this is not an emotional kind of love, but it is a disposition
of the heart to seek the welfare and also to meet the needs of others. Jesus said in John 15:13 “"Greater love
has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” After stating this Jesus did that very thing,
and He did this in on behalf of those God has chosen to be saved. John MacArthur writes “In the ultimate divine
act of love, God determined before the foundation of the earth that He would
give His only Son to save us. ‘God,
being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even
when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ’
(Eph. 2:4-5). He loved us, and will
eternally continue to love us, according to the kind intention of His will.”
The Result—Sonship
We will look at one more section in
today’s SD. The result of God’s election
in our “adoption as sons.” This is another
of the things which we have “in Christ,” as we become subject of His kingdom,
and because He is our Lord we are His servants.
In John 15:15 Jesus states “"No longer do I call you slaves, for
the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have
heard from My Father I have made known to you.” We are even more than slaves, and friends and
servants for He makes us children. It is
an amazing thing what God does as he lovingly draws us (redeemed sinners) into
the intimacy of His own family. I
suppose that at times we don’t think about this, nonetheless it is true and it
is something that we all need to praise the Lord for.
Let us look at what Paul has to say
about this from Romans 8:15 “For you have not received a spirit of slavery
leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by
which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"”
The term “Abba” in the Aramaic is what we would call “daddy” a term of
love and affection.
John MacArthur concludes this short
sub-section by writing “To be saved is to have the very life of God in our
souls, His own Spirit enlivening our spirits.
Human parents can aadopt children and come to love them every bit as
much as the love their natural children.
They can give an adopted child complete equality in the family life,
resources, and inheritance. But no human
aren’t can impart his own nature to an adopted child. Yet that is what God miraculously does to
ever person whom He has elected and who has trusted in Christ. He makes them sons like His divine Son. Christians not only have all of the Son’s
riches and blessings but all of the Son’s nature.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I just have a great deal of trouble of
wrapping my arms around the great love that God has for me even though I know
that all of it is true.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord to get a handle on my Sunday school lesson for this week as I am having
trouble with it.
Answer to
yesterday’s Bible question: “In his hair”
(Judges 16:19).
Today’s Bible
question: “What did the prodigal son
want his father to make him?”
Answer in our
next SD.
11/1/2018 12:05
PM
No comments:
Post a Comment