SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/14/2019
10:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “Loves Abundance”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph.
3:17b-19a
Message of the verses: “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 the words “breadth and length and height and
dept” as seen in verse 18 but as John MacArthur states he does not believe that
these represent four specific types or categories of love but simply suggest
its vastness and completeness. No matter what way we go we can see God’s
love. For instance when we see that Jews
and Gentiles in one body, the church we get a picture of the breadth of
God. We can see God’s length in Him choosing
us before the foundation of the world, and for that salvation will last for
eternity, which has no end. In Ephesians
1:3 we get an example of God height of love “Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” This can also be seen in Eph. 2:6 “and raised
us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus.” When I think of the depth of God’s
love I think of Psalm 40. “I waited
patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up out of the pit
of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my
footsteps firm. 3 He
put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see
and fear And will trust in the LORD. 4 How blessed is the man who has made the
LORD his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into
falsehood. 5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your
thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and
speak of them, They would be too numerous to count (Psalm 40:1-5).”
Ephesians
2:1-3 also speak of God’s depth of love:
“1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you
formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of
disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children
of wrath, even as the rest.”
John
MacArthur writes “In what may at first seems a self-contradiction, Paul says that
‘to know the love of Christ…surpasses knowledge.’ Knowing Christ’s ‘love’ takes us beyond human
‘knowledge,’ because it is from an infinity higher source. Paul is not speaking here of our knowing the
love we are to have for Christ but the ‘love of Christ,’ His very own love that
He must place in our hearts before we can love Him or anyone else. We are commanded to love because we are given love. God always gives before He commands anything in return, and love
is one of Christ’s greatest gifts to His church. Throughout John 14-16 Jesus promises to give
love, joy, peace, power and comfort without measure to those who belong to Him.”
In
order for the world to understand the great love that Christ give they would
have to be one of His children. A
non-believer cannot understand it because they are not in Christ. It seems to me that the unbelieving world who
has no problem in saying “God is love” only wants to manipulate believers into
doing something that they want them to do, but in the end they do not
understand God’s love and they surely do not understand His wrath and judgment.
The only kind of love that the world understands is I will do something for you
as long as you do something for me, and that is not agape love. Worldly love only lasts until it is offended
or rebuffed, but Christ’s love last despite every offense and every
rebuff. Worldly love loves for what it
can get, while Christ’s love for what it can give. What is incomprehensible to the world is to
be normal living for the child of God.
We
have two more sub-sections in this chapter on “The Fulness of God,” and
hopefully this will only take two days to complete.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful that God has not commanded me
to give love until after He has given me love.
“Love insists we do something.
Feelings follow action. Feelings
are the fruit, not the root, of love. If
you give your enemy something to eat or drink something happens to your feelings. When you invest yourself in someone, you
begin to feel differently toward him or her.”
This comes from the booklet “Love in Action” by David Jeremiah.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Remember the
truth of Romans 12:3.
Scripture that goes along with yesterdays
quote: “Give instruction to a wise man
and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning
(Proverbs 9:9).”
2/14/2019 10:44 AM
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