Tuesday, January 1, 2019

"Christless" from Eph. 2:12-13


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/1/2019 2:17 PM



My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-1 “Spiritual Alienation”



Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Ephesians 2:12-13



            Message of the verses:  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. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”



            We move from “Social Alienation” to “Spiritual Alienation” in today’s SD and we will be looking at five different sub-sections from this section, “Separate from Christ;” “Excluded from the commonwealth of Israel;” “Strangers to the covenants of Promise;” “Hopeless, Having no Hope;” fifth and most important “The Gentiles were without God.”  Needless to say this will take some time to go through these different sub-sections.



            I think it best to quote the first paragraph of John MacArthur’s commentary on this section to help us see where we will be going:  “A much more important Gentile alienation was spiritual:  ‘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.’  Although there was no moral difference between Jew and Gentile (as vv. 1-10 show), there was a difference in God’s dealing with them as men.  Before Christ came, the Jews were the people of promise from God, but the Gentiles as a people were cut off from God in five different ways.”  As mentioned this is what we will be looking at for a while.



The Gentiles were Christless (“Separate from Christ).



            As we can now read of how our Savior came to planet earth, and how we believe that He will return to the clouds to take His bride with Him, and then how He will come back to planet earth to end the war of Armageddon, and then set up His kingdom, this gives us hope.  However before Christ came to planet earth, the Gentiles had no hope of any Messiah.  MacArthur adds “The popular Stoic philosophers taught that history repeated itself in three-thousand-year cycles.  At the end of each cycle the universe is burned up and then reborn to repeat the same futile pattern.”



            When we think of the goddess Diana, or Atremis which were the gods that the Ephesians worshipped as seen in the book of Acts we can say that these pagan deities were but extensions of men’s own weakness and sins.  Some may get the idea that Diana was a beautiful looking goddess, but that would not be the truth.  This goddess was an ugly beast, with nipples hanging down on which her brood of little beasts suckled. (From MacArthur’s Commentary and from pictures that I looked at.)



            We will continue looking at the next sub-section in our next SD, Lord willing.



Spiritual meaning for my life today: Looking back from how I was alienated spiritual from the Lord is a good thing to see.



My Steps of Faith for Today:  I really don’t make New Years resolutions so to say, but I do have goals that I would like to do better at for 2019, and the first one comes from Romans 12:3 which I will publish here “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”  There is one more thing that I have added to my prayer list for me and that is that I will do a better job in looking at truth as opposed to emotions.



Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “1 Corinthians 13.”



Today’s Bible question:  “How old was Joseph when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream?”



Answer in our next SD.



1/1/2019 2:46 PM




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