SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2019
10:19 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Loves Abundance”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 3:17b-19a
Message of the verses: “and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able
to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and
depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ
which surpasses knowledge,”
We
ended our last SD talking about agape love, and I want to add that agape love
is a matter of the will and it is not a matter of feeling or emotion, though
deep feelings and emotions almost always accompany love. I suppose that John 3:16 is the classic text
on God loving the world, and this was not just a matter of feeling; however it
did result in God sending His Son to redeem the world. John 15:13 says “Greater love has no one than
this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” It does not say “Greater love has no one than
to have warm feelings for his friends,” and there is a huge difference there.
Jesus
Christ obeyed the will of His Father by coming to earth to die for all those
who would turn to Him and trust Him for their salvation. This was action and this action is described
by Paul in his letter to the Philippians.
Phil. 2:5-8 says “5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in
Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form
of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found
in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross.” This
describes the action that Christ took in dying for us.
This
kind of love does not come natural to believers as it has to be given to us by
the Spirit of God as He works in our life to accomplish it in us. John MacArthur writes “We can only love as
Christ loves when He has free reign in our hearts. ‘By this,’ John says, ‘the love of God was
manifested in us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we
might live through Him In this is love,
not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if
God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love
one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us…We love, because
He first loved us’ (1 John 4:9-12, 19).
“When
the Spirit empowers our lives and Christ is obeyed as the Lord of our hearts,
our sins and weaknesses are dealt with and we find ourselves wanting to serve
others, wanting to sacrifice for them and serve them—because Christ’s loving
nature has truly become our own. Loving
is the supernatural attitude of the Christian, because love is the nature of
Christ. When a Christian does not love
he has to do so intentionally and with effort—just as he must do to hold his
breath. To become habitually unloving he
must habitually resist Christ as the Lord of his heart. To continue the analogy to breathing, when
Christ has his proper place in our hearts, we do not have to be told to love—just
as we do not have to be told to breathe.
Eventually it must happen, because loving is as natural to the spiritual
person as breathing is to the natural person.”
One
may think that this kind of love does not always happen in the life of the
believer, especially when it comes to relationships in the home between a
husband and a wife. Husbands are
commanded to love (agape) their wives, which is different than the romantic
kind of love that husbands and wives have for each other. Paul talks about this later on in this letter
to the Ephesians, 5:25, 28.
This
kind of love applies to everyone with whom the believer has contact, especially
his fellow Christians. Loving other is
an act of obedience, and not loving them is an act of disobedience.
John
MacArthur writes that “The absence of love is the presence of sin. The absence of love has nothing at all to do
with what is happening to us, but everything to do with what is happening in
us. Sin and love are enemies, because
sin and God are enemies. They cannot coexist. Where one is, the other is not. The loveless
life is the ungodly life; and the godly life is the serving, caring,
tenderhearted, affectionate, self-giving, self-sacrificing life of Christ’s
love working through the believer.”
The
following quote comes from “Love in Action” by David Jeremiah, the same little
book that I quoted from yesterday. “Believers
are to follow the way of love, to do everything in love, to serve on another in
love, to live a life of love, to speak the truth in love, to put on love, to
pursue love, to spur one another on to love, and to love not only in words but
in actions and truth.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Loving does not come natural to believers
because of still having the old nature, and so loving one another has to come
from the Lord as His Spirit fills us.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will continue to work in
my heart the truths of Romans 12:3.
Scripture verse from yesterday’s
quote: “He who answer a matter before he
hears it, it is a folly and a shame to him (Proverbs 18:13).”
2/12/2019 10:55 AM
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