SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/5/2019
10:01 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Pt-5 “The Spirit’s Power”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 3:14-16
Message of the verses: “14 ¶ When I think
of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of
everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited
resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.”
I
promised to quote a story concerning Martin Luther in this SD, and will do
after we talk a moment about this prayer that Paul includes in verses 14-21, a
prayer that is very powerful to say the least.
Paul’s petition for the Ephesians, and thus for all believers was bold,
confident, and it was inclusive, as Paul asked God to give believers “every
spiritual” enablement that they did not already use to apply their available
resources. As I listened to a sermon by
John MacArthur on this section of Scripture he mentioned that he had only
preached on these verses once before when he first began his ministry at Grace
Church some ten years before he was preaching at this time. He went on to say that he had preached
through these verses many, many times in places he went to preach outside of
Grace Church, and the reason was that this prayer is extremely important for
all believers to understand. This prayer
is about the things that Paul spoke of in the first three and a half chapters
in this letter. I gave the illustration
about a car in an earlier SD, and stated that if a person knew all aspects of a
car, but did not get into the car and drive it that it would do them no
good. If believers know all the truths
that Paul describes in these first three and a half chapters but do not use
them in their walk with the Lord, then it does not do them much good. So as we continue looking at this prayer we
see that Paul is praying that believers will use the doctrine that he taught
them at the beginning of this letter. By
doing this it will make a big difference in our walk with the Lord.
“In
1540 Luther’s good friend and assistant, Friedrich Myconius, became sick and
was expected to die within a short time.
From his bed he wrote a tender farewell letter to Luther. When Luther received the message, he
immediately sent back a reply: ‘I
command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in
the work of reforming the church…The Lord will never let me hear that thou art
dead, but will permit thee to survive me.
For this I am praying, this is my will, and may my will be done, because
I seek only to glorify the name of God.’
“Those
words seem harsh and insensitive to modern ears, but God apparently honored the
prayer. Although Myconius had already
lost the ability to speak when Luther’s reply came, he soon recovered. He lived six more years and died two months
after Luther.
“In
our daily living and in our prayer, it is more difficult to appreciate
spiritual riches than it is to appreciate material riches. Whether we have a lot of money or not, we
have some comprehension of what material wealth is like. We have a taste of it in the things we do
possess and we can vicariously enjoy the expensive homes, cars, boats, jewelry,
clothes, and other such things that we see rich people enjoying. Spiritual riches, on the other hand, are not
so obvious—and are not even attractive to the natural man or to disobedient
Christians.”
Now
the entire above quote from MacArthur seems to me that we have to understand
what he wrote just before he was writing about Luther, something that I am
having a bit of trouble understanding, but I think that I need to quote that
too. MacArthur writes “As the rest of
the prayer indicates, Paul’s petition for the Ephesians believers was bold,
confident, and inclusive. He asked God
to give them every spiritual enablement they did not already use to apply their
available resources. Jacques Ellul, the
contemporary Christian philosopher, is convinced that prayer for persons living
in the technological age must be combative—and prayer, he says, is not just
combat with Satan, corrupted society, and one’s own divided self, but is combat
with God. We must struggle with the Lord
just as Jacob did at Peniel (Gen. 32:24-30), as Abraham boldly interceded for
Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:23-32), and as Moses interceded for his fellow
Israelites (Ex. 32:11-13; Num. 14:13-19).”
I really hope that this helps us understand more about the way that Paul
was praying for the Ephesians, and thus praying for us. I mentioned that the Lord answered a prayer
for my son in finding a job, and as I look back at the way I prayed for him it
goes along with what we are learning about prayer in this SD, about how Luther
prayed for his friend, and how Jacob wanted a blessing from the Lord, and how
Abraham prayed for Sodom, knowing that his nephew Lot was living there, and
then the two times Moses interceded with God over the children of Israel. Moses knew God, he knew about His attributes
and so that is how he prayed for the children of Israel by talking to God about
his attributes. I think that this is a
good way to pray, for if we know the Lord and know Him by knowing His attributes
then we can be more effective in our prayer life.
This
section is a very long section in John MacArthur’s commentary, and as I
continue to look at it and as I have listened to his sermon on this section I
can understand why he is so passionate about this prayer that Paul prayed, for
if we believers understand this then we will be able to do better things to
glorify the Lord.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I realize that there are many things that I
don’t know about praying to the Lord. I
know that one of the main things in praying is having my will lined up with the
Lord’s will and in order for me to do a better job at this I need to study His
Word.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Continue to trust the Lord to make my prayer life more effective and to glorify
the Lord.
Today’s quote: “Words are things; and a small drop of ink
falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps
millions, think (Lord Byron).”
Verse that goes with this quote in our
next SD.
2/5/2019 11:01 AM
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