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
No comments:
Post a Comment