SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/7/2019
7:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-7 “The Spirit’s Power”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 3:14-16
Message of the verses: “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,”
We
read about the English man Julian Ellis Morris in our last SD, and the story
that was told about him illustrated that we as believers are not to be spending
a part of our day in apparent poverty like he did, but we are to be living a
life of victory because of the richness that God has given to us because we are
His child. Now the first step in living
like God’s children is to be “strengthened with power through His Spirit in the
inner man.” I suppose that it is true
that many believers never get to that first step, as they do not know what it
is to see God’s power fully at work in them.
If believers suffer, then that means the church suffers and that means
that the world will also suffer too because most believers are never “strengthened
with power through His Spirit.”
As
we have studied the book of Acts and other letters that Paul wrote we know that
he healed many people, especially during the first part of his ministry, and we
also learned that he had a deep concern for the hungry church at Jerusalem as
seen by the collections that he made to help feed them which is recorded in the
book of Acts along with written about in the 15th chapter of his letter
to the Romans. This proves that Paul
cared about the outer man, but the outer man is perishing each day, and so Paul’s
real concern was for the inner man. “Therefore
we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man
is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).”
“
John
MacArthur writes “In The Psychological
Society Martin Gross questions the very foundations of psychology and
psychiatry, suggesting that prestige and financial gain are the real driving
forces behind them. Even more significantly,
however, he asserts that psychology and psychiatry have no answers to the
mental and emotional ills they are used to treat. His conclusion is that every person is
incurably neurotic by nature and should be left alone with his neurosis. From the purely human standpoint from which
he writes, Gross’s pessimistic conclusion is perfectly sound, because man’s
basic nature is indeed universally and incurably flawed. But the flaw is sin, of which neuroses and
all other problems are but symptoms. The flaw is in the inner man, where
man himself cannot perform a cure.”
So
what is the cure for the inner man? “Only
God can reach an cure the ‘inner man,’ and that is where He most wants to
work. His work begins with salvation,
and after that His main field of work is still the ‘inner man,’ because that is
where spiritual life exists and where it must grow. The ‘divine nature,’ imparted to the believer
at salvation (1 Pet. 1:3), is at the core of the ‘inner man’ and is the base
from which the Holy Spirit changes the thinking of the believer.”
As
we have looked at the outer man is becoming weaker, and yet the inner man can
continue to become stronger through the working of the Holy Spirit in our
lives. Jesus told His disciples right
before He went back to heaven “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you
shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even
to the remotest part of the earth.”
In the verse before this one the disciples were worrying about when the
world was going to end, and when the Lord would return to get them, but Jesus
did not answer their question about that but wanted them to focus on doing what
He had planned for them to do in order to change the world, and change the
world they did as they used that power to change the inner man of many
thousands of people whom God then used to do the same through those people that
were changed from the message of the apostles, and on it goes.
One
of the chapters of the Bible that causes me to do much thinking about is the 7th
chapter of Romans. Let us look at verses
22-23 “22 For I joyfully concur with the
law of God in the inner man, 23 but I
see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my
mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.” What we see here is Paul expressing the
strong desire of a regenerated man to do the will of God, however is hampered
by the sin that dwells in his fleshly body.
As we move onto chapter eight we hear Paul express the truth that
victory that is in this conflict is in the Holy Spirit. “5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of
the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is
life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for
it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do
so, 8 and those who
are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the
Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”
Paul is talking about those who cannot please God are not believers, but
those who are His children can because we have the new nature that God has
given to us, however we must please the Lord by living through the power of the
Holy Spirit. “For if you are living
according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds
of the body, you will live (V. 13).”
MacArthur writes “In fact, the promise comes that through the power of
the Spirit the believer can ‘kill’ the evil deeds of his unredeemed flesh (v.
13).”
“The
obedient, effective, and productive Christian must be Spirit conscious, Spirit
filled, and Spirit controlled.” “But I
say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh
(Gal. 5:16).”
In
our last SD on this subject I want to quote from MacArthur’s commentary to help
us better understand how we can have the victory that God desires believers to
have through the Holy Spirit’s power working in our lives. It will be a rather short SD, but one that
all of us need to look at more than once to help us to be more like our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Quote from Dr. Warren Wiersbe “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.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: To feed the new nature!
Today’s quote: “Our strength is seen in the things we stand
for; our weakness is seen in the things we fall for.” (Theodore Epp.)
Scripture that goes along
with this quote in our next SD:
2/7/2019 8:55 AM
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