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
No comments:
Post a Comment