Wednesday, February 6, 2019

PT-6 "The Spirits Power" (Eph. 3:14-16)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/6/2019 8:35 AM



My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-6 “The Spirits Power”



Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 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 (NLT).”

            14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, (NASB95).”



            In our last SD we talked a little bit about how when a believer lives out his life in a way that produces “the riches of His glory,” that this means little to the unbelieving world around them, and in our country today may even get them into some kind of trouble, but as believers, we are to make every effort to do this as we study His Word and learn and grow by doing so.  In the Spiritual Diary that I posted on my other blog this morning from 2 Peter there is a quote from Dr. Warren Wiersbe that I think goes well with living the Christian life:  “Because we possess this divine nature, we have ‘completely escape’ the defilement and decay in this present evil world.  If we feed the new nature the nourishment of the Word, then we will have little interest in the garbage of the world.  But if we ‘make provision for the flesh’ (Rom. 13:14), our sinful nature will lust after the ‘old sins’ (2 Peter 1:9) and we will disobey God.  Godly living is the result of cultivating the new nature within.”  For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins (2 Peter 1:9).”



            Since the beginning of this letter Paul has been exulting over those “divine riches” as seen in verses 1:3 “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,” and 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” and 1:4 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”  Ephesians 1:9 “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him,” and 1:11 “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”  John MacArthur writes “The phrase ‘of His glory’ testifies that these riches belong to God because of who He is.  They belong innately to His person, which is to say, His glory (cf. 1:17, where Paul calls God, ‘the Father of glory’ and Ex. 33:18ff. where God reveals His personal attributes as glory).

            “Those, and many others, are the riches that every believer has in Jesus Christ.  Paul is not praying for God to give these riches to believers, but ‘that He would grant’ believers ‘to be strengthened’ by God ‘according to the riches’ they already possess.  He wants them to live lives that correspond to the spiritual wealth they have in Christ.”



            I want to close this SD with a story from MacArthur’s commentary to help us understand that we are to live according to the riches He has given to us:  “A certain rich English eccentric named Julian Ellis Morris like to dress like a tramp and sell razor blades, soap, and shampoo dor-to-door.  After a day’s work he would return to his beautiful mansion, put on formal attire and have his chauffeur drive him to an exclusive restaurant in his limousine.  Sometimes he would catch a flight to Paris and spend the evening there.

            “Many Christians live something like Mr. Morris, spending their day-by-day lives in apparent spiritual poverty and only occasionally enjoying the vast ‘riches of His glory’ that their heavenly Father has given them.  How tragic to go around in the tattered rags of our own inadequacy when we could be living sumptuously in the superabundance of God’s unspeakable riches.”



            We will continue looking at these verses in our next SD, Lord willing.



            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To live according to “the riches of His glory” takes effort on my part and also I must rely on the Spirit of God to do this.  I realize that God desires me to live this way, for His glory, and not mine.



My Steps of Faith for Today:  Remember the truth of Romans 12:3.



Verse that goes along with yesterday’s quote:  “A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!”  (Proverbs 15:23)



2/6/2019 9:10 AM


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