Friday, January 25, 2019

PT-2 "The Preaching of the Mystery" (Eph. 3:7-9)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/25/2019 11:32 AM



My Worship Time                                                    Focus:  PT-2 “The Preaching of the Mystery”



Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Ephesians 3:7-9



            Message of the verses:  7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9  and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things;”



            As we continue to talk about “mystery” I can’t help but think of one of my favorite verses:  “"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law (Deu. 29:19).”  ““The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions (Deut. 29:29 NLT),”



            One of the things that we can take note of in this section is that God is the One who called Paul to preach to the Gentiles, and in our churches today, the ones where the Word of God is preached each day by Pastors who are truly born-again believers, that God has called them to do this.  When the church began God used the eleven apostles to preach the Word of God, and as the early church began to grow there were men who had been saved through the apostle’s ministry who were called by the Lord to continue to preach the Word of God.  Later on God called Paul in order to have him preach the gospel to the Gentiles.  Now as the years went by there were no more apostles, as John was probably the last to die at the end of the fist century, and so God continued to call men to preach the Word in the churches, and so it goes on today as it is God who calls men to become preachers in the churches today.  I want to say that what I am talking about here are true born-again Pastors, whose qualifications are found in the letters that Paul wrote to men that were preachers in the early church, men like Timothy and Titus.  Now here is what has happened in the church, not only in our day, but throughout the history of the church, and that is that there are many people in the church today who were not called by the Lord to preach and to teach and John MacArthur writes to this issue:  “Any person in the ministry of the church whom God has not appointed is a usurper.  No matter how seemingly good his intentions, he can do nothing but harm the work of the Lord and to the Lord’s people.  Jeremiah speaks to this matter when he writes the Lord’s word:  ‘I did not send these prophets, but they ran.  I did not speak to them, but they prophesied…I did not send them or command them’ (Jer. 23:21, 32).  No man should enter the ministry unless he is absolutely certain of the Lord’s calling.”  I have to admit that in my life as a born-again believer in Jesus Christ that I have sat under three wonderful Pastors that I have no doubt have been called by God to preach His Word to those in the congregations that God has given to them.  I have also sat under two Pastors who I am not sure that God called them to the ministry.  My thoughts are that they could have been listening in on someone else conversation and though that God was speaking to them.



            I mention the Pastoral letters and so I want to look at 1 Timothy 3:1-7 “1 It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. 2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity 5 (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?), 6 and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. 7 And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”  I can thankfully say that in all of my years as a believer in Jesus Christ, which will be 45 years tomorrow, that the three Pastors that I have set under fit what Paul is writing to Timothy says they should be.  The other two, as mentioned, I’m not sure of their calling, but am sure they did not follow what these qualifications listed above.



            Perhaps two of the things that can cause Pastors to fail in today’s world are the constant bombarding of sex related issues.  Another thing is pride as they forget that they are stewards of God and began to think of themselves as being able to do the ministry on their own.



            We will, Lord willing, to continue to look at these verses in our next SD.



            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To keep on fighting the spiritual battle as I continues to go on for me and for every believer, to rely on the Word of God and the God of the Word to give me victory.



My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will teach me to rely on “truth” and not on my emotions, and to teach me the truths from Rom. 12:3.



Verse related to yesterday’s quotation.  



James 1:17 “Every Good and every perfect Gift is from Above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”



The following comes from my SD dated 08:28-2003 and is from the help of Warren Wiersbe:  If I understand what Dr. Wiersbe says about this verse it could start out something like this:  Every gift that God gives us is perfect, and the way that He gives it to us is perfect, and He keeps on giving us gifts all of the time, even when we do not realize that He is giving them to us, and God is not like the moving of the planets and stars, for He never changes because He cannot change for worse because He is holy, and He cannot change for better because He is perfect.



1/25/2019 12:13 PM


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