PT-2 "Christ's Indwelling" (Eph. 3:17a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/10/2019 9:26 PM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-2 “Christ’s indwelling”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 3:17a

            Message of the verse:  “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;”

            I mentioned in our last SD that we would look at some of the things that are in a booklet entitled “My Heart Christ’s Home” written by Robert Munger.  What happened yesterday is that while I was walking on my treadmill I was listening to John MacArthur’s sermon on this section of Scripture, something that helps me better understand what I am studying at the time, and while doing this he went on to talk for a bit about this booklet, and so I thought that I would quote from that section in order to give us all a better understanding of what Munger was writing about.

“Some of you have read the little booklet called "My Heart Christ's Home." If you haven't you ought to get it and read it. That's a good little booklet. I read it many, many years ago when I was just a kid. And it's ... it makes a person's heart, does a kind of allegory to where a person's heart and life is like a house. And Jesus comes to the house and starts it out. The fact that Jesus is there indicates the person is a Christian. And Robert Munger who wrote the book describes it this way. First Jesus went into the library which is the control room of the house. Right? What you read. Which is like the brain. Where all the information is stored. And Jesus goes into the room that is the mind, the brain, and he finds on the shelves all kinds of trash and garbage and junk and evil and bad thinking and bad human philosophy and useless stuff, stuff that is not going to help you. A lot of neutral things and He just takes it all off the shelves, throws it away and puts the Word up there. See. The control room. Then He goes to the dining room. And the dining room is the room of the appetite. Right? And the room of the desires. What do you really feast on? What do you really hunger for? What do you really want? And he finds a worldly menu. A menu of riches, a menu that includes prestige, a menu that includes things, materialism, lust of the flesh and He takes it all out, everything out of there, and puts a new menu in and it is the food that really satisfies the will of the Father. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So the library is cleaned up and the Word is there. And the dining room is cleaned up and the only thing on the menu is the will of God. And you can get it in any different shape and form you want it but it's all the will of God. And so the will of God becomes that for which you hunger, not your own fleshly desires.

“Then Jesus goes to the living room because the living room is where you share and you fellowship and He goes in there and He finds that that's where He's neglected. There's a lot of activity going on but nobody pays any attention to Him. He's just there. And all the fellowship and all the action that is going on, He's just there. I mean, you imagine that. Just think of it this way. Imagine the best friend you have, spend an entire day with you from dawn till midnight. The whole day. At your side the whole time. And all the while loving you, and all the while wanting to say to you you know, here's a good thing to do...oh, I don't think you should do that ... I'd like to encourage you to do this. Well, all day long you never bother to even acknowledge the presence of your friend. You never even said hello. You just went about your business, some­ times giving an elbow, stepping on a toe. Just complete ... how long do you think that person would be your friend? About one day. Probably be pretty disillusioned. Jesus is the same kind of a friend only in a greater way. And it's very likely as near as one day last week He spent an entire day with you through which you never one time bothered to acknowledge His presence. Never one time. And yet He's your friend forever. It's a good think it's based on Him and not you. Right?

“And so the living room is a place of fellowship. But you've got to have the right fellowship. And so this is where you need to spend time with Christ. And you can clear out a lot of those worldly acquaintances. And a lot of that wasted activity, and a lot of that stuff that doesn't have any redeeming virtue at all and spend your time with Christ and... listen to this, spend your time with people who have Christ living in them. See. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as a manner of some is and much the more as you see the day approaching because this is necessary to provoke yourselves to love and good works." Spend time with Jesus and spend time with people that Jesus lives in. Very important.

“Well, then He goes to the workshop. And He goes to the workshop and He finds fantastic tools, beautiful work bench. And the guy is in there making toys. Just toys. And Jesus says you've-got all this ability and you can't produce anything more than a toy? Jesus wants to take all your abilities, all your capacities, all your capabilities and cause them to produce things for the Kingdom. Cause them to lay up treasure in heaven, cause them to make things that have eternal value. So He changes the whole format in the workshop. He gets all done. I mean, the library's all fixed; it's got the right kind of stuff up there to control everything. The dining room is great, we've got the appetites all set on the will of God. The living room is settled, we're in there fellowshipping with Christ and people Christ lives in. And the workshop is ready; we're down there using our tools and our abilities to make things for the kingdom. But there's a strange odor coming from someplace. Nice and clean but something stinks. You know, like when the meat leaked under the ice box, or whatever. And the Lord isn't too happy. There's something dead in here, He says. And the guy says - Look, You come into my house. You clean up everything. I mean, leave me one closet, will You? That's all I ask. You can have the dining room and all this stuff, just ... that's my closet. The Lord says No, I want that closet. That's the closet full of personal sins, the hidden things, the dead things. And the man became very angry because Jesus had every other room but Jesus gave him a command - Open it! And he opened it and it was full of evil things. Those little secret things that nobody knows about, those things that go on in your mind. Those things that you do when nobody sees you do them. And Jesus cleaned that out. And when He got all that done-then He was at home. See?”

            I have mentioned before that when I quote from MacArthur’s sermons that whatever he says in the sermon is exactly what is printed on his website even if the English is not proper.  However I think that we can learn from these quotes even if the grammar is not perfect.

Verse that went with our last quote:  “Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’  ‘What shall we wear?’…For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things (Matthew 6:31-32).”

2/10/2019 9:40 PM