Monday, February 25, 2019

PT-4 "Humility" (Eph. 4:2)


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



           

No comments:

Post a Comment