Saturday, December 29, 2018

PT-1 "Alienation Apart From Christ" from Eph. 2:11-12


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/29/2018 11:22 AM



My Worship Time                                                     Focus: PT-1 “Alienation Apart From Christ”



Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 2:11-12



            Message of the verses:  11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "Uncircumcision" by the so-called "Circumcision," which is performed in the flesh by human hands- 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”



            I really can’t speculate how much trouble there is in today’s world as far as having Jewish believers in the church because I have never been in a church where there was a Jewish believer.  I can say that I think that I could really benefit from that situation as the Old Testament was a shadow of what has come when Christ came into the world and therefore if I can look at the shadow I can probably gain from the real thing.  An example of what I am trying to say comes from how the Jewish people celebrate the Passover, and when a believer looks at how they do this it is very revealing on my Christian faith. 



            We have been talking about disunity and also unity in the body of Christ and the biggest thing that caused the disunity in the Christian church when it began was having Gentile believers worshiping in the same church as Jewish believers.  Today it is probably having people of color worshiping with what we call white people.  I can’t help but go back to when I listened to a rather long sermon by Ken Ham as he was explaining where the different people groups came from.  He stated that when God created Adam and Eve that they were probably a bit darken than what we call white people today, but that in their genes would come all the different shades of people we have today.  One of the things that he said that I always remember is that there is only one race on planet earth and that is the human race, and if you go back far enough we are all brothers and sisters for we all came from the family of Adam and Eve and then eventually Noah.  Ok that is enough of this as I want to try and understand the verses that we are looking at today, and it will take a number of Spiritual Diaries to do that.



            I think to better understand this section we have to understand the history of the Jewish people and understand that God called them in order to teach them about who He is.  The church owes a lot to the Jewish people for if it were not for them then we would not have a Savior, for Jesus Christ in the flesh was Jewish.  We would not even have a Bible for all of the books of the Bible were written by Jews.  The problem was that they misunderstood what one of their purposes was and that was to evangelize the nations around them.  They took what God had given them and thought that they were so special that all the peoples around them were less than what they were because of what God had done for them.  I think that this same things happen to the church today as even though people have not done nothing to deserve the salvation that Christ has provided for them that they get puffed up over it and then we end up with division in our churches because of this pride.  Paul is and has been taking the people who he is writing to and trying to show them once again what they were before they became believers, and I think that this is a really good thing for all believers to do, that is look back at what we were before the Spirit of God gave us an effectual call that we could not say no to and thus became believers because of what Christ has done for us.



            At the beginning of the church age there were no Gentiles in it.  When we get to Acts chapter ten we see the first Gentile come to know the Lord and it was Peter who was the one who led him to the Lord.  However Peter had to be taught a lesson and that lesson involved him going into a trance as the Holy Spirit did this to him.  While in that “trance” he saw a sheet filled with animals that Jews were not permitted to eat as it was a part of their law.  Peter was told to eat but he said that he had never did this and would not eat these kinds of animals.  God told him "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy’ (Acts 10:15).”  The result was that he and some of his friends went to the household of Cornelius and that entire household became believers. 



            In Acts chapter 15 we see a meeting with all of the heads of the church in Jerusalem along with Paul and Barabbas and this was such an important meeting that if the outcome of it would have been different then the church would have stopped to exist.  Paul had been on missionary journeys and led many Gentiles to the Lord, and so some of the Jews said that these Gentiles could not become believers until they became Jews first and then they had to keep the Law before they could be saved.  This of course was not true and so at the end of the meeting there was a letter prepared telling these Gentile believers that they did not have to become Jews and keep the Law.  Peter stated the following near the end of the meeting:  “10 “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are."   In the book of Galatians Paul tells how Peter seemed to forget what he had learned and was actually causing a division in the church:  “11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. 13 The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? (Gal. 2:11-14).”  It is not hard to believe these things about Peter as all of us have that old nature or flesh which can cause us to do sinful things.  I am reminded of a verse that I don’t know where it is at in the Bible that God says that we are made from dust and therefore we have a tendency to sin. 



            I want to write a bit about why it was that God made Israel different, that is that there were laws given to them telling then what to eat, and even how to dress, laws that as believers in Jesus Christ we do not have to follow any more.  However nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament so that we are to follow them through the power of the Holy Spirit.  God made them different so that people would see that they were different and have a desire to want to understand who their God was.  I have heard that the Jewish children have to memorize the book of Leviticus and I suppose that man believers do not even read, let alone study the book of Leviticus.   Leviticus shows us that God is holy and that we should realize that we are different, not that different makes us a believer, but that different makes stand out once we become believers so that others will notice us and desire to know our God who made us different.



            This SD is more of an introduction than actually breaking down the verses (Eph. 2:11-12), which we hopefully will get to in our next SD.



            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful that I am different than what I was before I became a believer.  God did this, and continues to do this as I study His Word, listen to good sound preaching from His Word, and think about His Word.  Something I desire to do more.



My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to continue to cause me to grow, to continue to give me the desire to grow by staying in His Word.



Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Paul” (Acts 23:6).



Today’s Bible question:  “Where was the well from which David wanted a drink?”



Answer in our next SD.



12/29/2018 1:08 PM












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