SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/1/2019
10:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Spirit’s Power”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 3:14-16
Message of the verses: “14 For this reason
I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth
derives its name, 16 that He would grant
you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power
through His Spirit in the inner man,”
I
have to say that this section “The Spirit’s Power” will take many days to go
through.
We
mentioned earlier that when we began the third chapter of Ephesians that Paul
was starting to pray for the Ephesian believers, but then may have had second
thoughts and so as we begin verse fourteen with the words “For this reason” we
can see that Paul picks up where he started in 3:1 “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of
Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles-.”
Notice that there is a dash after the word Gentiles indication that what
came after verse one was a parenthesis as Paul then went back to what he was
talking about in chapter two. It is
because of all the things that Paul discussed in chapter two, showing that our
new identity makes us the dwelling place of God that Paul prays for the
Ephesians to use the power that their great status in Christ provide for
them. MacArthur writes “Because God’s
power is in those believers; Paul prays that God would enable them to employ
the fullness of that power. Because
believers are the habitation of the triune, all-powerful God of the universe,
Paul prays that their unlimited energy from Him would be manifested.”
Remember
that we mentioned that in Paul’s letters he begins with doctrine and then after
he takes time to explain doctrine that he goes on to talk about how believers
should use that doctrine in their lives, and beginning in 3:14 Paul is showing
us how to use the doctrine that he taught us in the first three and a half
chapters, and he begins explain this to us by praying for us.
MacArthur
writes “The truth that omnipotence dwells within impotence is so majestic,
grandiose, and elevated that we would expect Paul to address God as the eternal
King of glory or by some other such exalted title. But he says rather, ‘I bow my knees before
the Father.’ ‘Father’ is the same
appellation Jesus always used in prayer, and the one He used in teaching His
disciples to pray (Matt. 6:9).” Paul addressed
God in “Ro 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 following comes from my English/Greek dictionary
from the word “Abba” “1) father,
customary title used of God in prayer. Whenever it occurs in the New
Testament it has the Greek interpretation joined to it, that is apparently to
be explained by the fact that the Chaldee ABBA through frequent use in
prayer, gradually acquired the nature of a most sacred proper name, to which
the Greek speaking Jews added the name from their own tongue. {Mr 14:36 Ro 8:15
Ga. 4:6}.” It is because of Christ’s
death on the cross that those who have accepted His forgiveness that we can
pray to God the Father using this word “Abba” which, form what I understand is
like using the word “Papa,” a term used for a loving father.
We see that Paul
writes “I bow my knees” in verse fourteen, and Paul is not saying that this is
the proper way to pray to God, as Paul did not always pray in this position of
kneeling. Let us look at some verses
that show us we do not always need to be kneeling to pray. “while Abraham was still standing before the LORD (Genesis 18:22b).” When David was praying about the building of
the temple he “went in and sat before the Lord’ (1 Chron. 17:16). Jesus fell on His face praying in the Garden
of Gethsemane as seen in Matthew 26:39.”
In
our next SD we will begin to look at a couple of reasons why Paul used this
term “bow my knees.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is good to be reminded that I can come to
my heavenly Father in prayer, knowing that as long as my heart is clean that He
will always answer me, and if my heart is holding some kind of sin in it and I
desire to ask forgiveness, then He will surely hear me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to study my verse for this year
(Romans 12:3), and to continue to rely on God’s truth and now so much my
emotions.
Quote for today: “Surrender…is the key that unlocks the vault
of God’s best and deepest treasures” (Chuck Swindoll).
We will look at the verse that goes
along with this quote in our next SD.
2/1/2019 11:17 AM
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