SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/25/2019
10:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Humility”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians 4:2
Message of the verses: “2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,”
I promised a story from MacArthur’s commentary as we begin this SD:
During the days of slavery in the West Indies, a group of Moravian
Christians found it impossible to witness to the slaves because they were
almost totally separated from the ruling class—many of whom felt it beneath
them even to speak to a slave. Two young
missionaries, however, were determined to reach those oppressed peoples at any
cost. In order to fulfill God’s calling
they joined the slaves. They worked and
lived beside the slaves, becoming totally identified with them—sharing their
overwork, their beatings, and their abuse.
It is not strange that the two missionaries soon won the hearts of those
slaves, many of whom accepted for themselves the God who could move men to such
loving selflessness.”
How
could not one think of our Lord Jesus Christ who actually became a slave as
Paul points out in Philippians 2: 5-7 “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.” The
word for “bond-servant” is actually slave, (doulos) and it is unfortunate that
in most NT translations of the Bible that the word is not translated slave in
the more than 120 times it is used in the NT.
At any rate the point that I am trying to make is that these missionaries
in this story did something very similar in what Jesus did in becoming a slave
so that those who accept him can become children of God.
A
person cannot become a believer without humility, for a person has to realize
that they are a sinner, and that takes humility to do that. John the Baptist is a perfect example of a
person having humility. John the Baptist
was called by God to make things ready for the Messiah and even though he had a
great ministry when he saw Jesus coming, the One he was making a way for, John
said “I am not fit to remove His sandals” (Matt. 3:11). He went on to say “He must increase, but I
must decrease” (John 3:30). There are
other examples in the Scripture of having humility, one would be Mary who sat
at the feet of Jesus listening to Him, and then there was Matthew the tax
collector who after Jesus’ call he got rid of everything to follow Jesus. Matthew did not write about his conversion as
he left it up to Luke to do so.
As
far as Mark’s gospel we believe that this was written under the influence of
Peter and so in Mark’s gospel we don’t see the story of Jesus and Peter walking
on the water, and we don’t see the story that comes out of Matthew 16 about
Peter confessing that Jesus is the Messiah.
John
MacArthur has a quote in this section of his commentary from Thomas Guthrie:
“The grandest edifices, the
tallest towers, the loftiest spires rest on deep foundations. The very safety of eminent gifts and preeminent
graces lies in their association with deep humility. They are dangerous without it. Great men do need to be good men. Look at the mighty ship. A leviathan into the sea, with her towering
masts and carrying a cloud of canvas.
How she steadies herself on the waves and walks erect on the rolling
waters like a thing with inherent, self-regulating life…Why is she not flung on
her beam’s end, sent down floundering into the deep? Because unseen beneath the surface a vast
well-ballasted hull gives her balance and takes hold of the water, keeps her
steady under a pressive sail and on the bosom of a swelling sea. Even though to preserve the saint upright, to
preserve the saint erect and safe from falling, God gives him balance and
ballast bestowing on the man to whom He has given lofty endowments, the tendant
grace of a proportionate humility. “
It
looks like we will have to finish this section in our next SD as after this
last quote I think it would be good to think about it for a while. I have been making my Spiritual Diaries
shorter as we go through the book of Ephesians because there is a lot to digest
in this wonderful book and I don’t want to have too much to digest at one time.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful that the Lord led me to study
the book of Ephesians in order for me to better understand the great truths that
are found in its pages. Along with that goes
what I believe the Lord desires to teach me this year from Romans 12:3.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust learn more about humility,
and to trust the Lord as I prepare my Sunday school lesson for this up-coming
Sunday.
Today’s quotation: “Knowledge is horizontal, wisdom is vertical—it
comes down from above” (Billy Graham).
2/25/2019 11:05 AM
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