SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/4/2019
12:04 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Unity”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians 4:3
Message of the verses: “3 Make every
effort to keep the unity of the Spirit
through the bond of peace.”
Once
again I want to remind you about the different characteristic elements that
begin with humility and then it goes to gentleness, patience, and forbearance and
not comes to unity as seen in verse three.
It all begins with being humble, and then you can get gentleness,
patience, love and then this last element will result which is unity. The Greek word for unity is “Spoudazo” and
this means to be diligent. MacArthur
says that it “basically means to make haste, and from that come the meanings of
zeal and diligence. One commentator
describes it as a holy zeal that demands full dedication. Paul used the word in telling Timothy, ‘Be
diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to
be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15; cf. Titus
3:12-13).” “11 For the grace of God has
appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires
and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for
the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior,
Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself
for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people
for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 3:11-14 [12-13
highlighted]).
What
is Paul talking about here? John
MacArthur tells his readers what he is talking about, but before that what he
is not talking about, and what he is not talking about is he is not speaking of
organizational unity, such as that promoted in many denominations and in the ecumenical
movement. So what is he speaking
of? That would be the inner and
universal “unity of the Spirit” by which every true believer is bound to every
other true believer. Paul is making sure
that this is the unity of
the Spirit working in the lives of believers. This does not come from the outside, for that
would be worthless, but it has to come from the inside, and this is manifested
through the inner qualities of humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearing
love. This is what we have been looking
at for not just a few days.
I
believe that I have mentioned that what we fine here in Ephesians chapter four
is similar to what we find in Romans chapter 12, and that is that in both books
Paul begins to explain how to live out the doctrines that he has been talking
about in the first part of the book, in the case of Romans it covered the first
eleven chapters, and in the case of Ephesians it covered the first three
chapters. Also in both books we see that
Paul begins the next chapter by talking about humility as he will then go on to
talk about Spiritual gifts. Also as
mentioned Spiritual gifts are also mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and 1
Peter chapter four, and the purpose, or at least one purpose of the Spiritual
gifts is for the building up of the church, to keep the church united as we see
in our verse for today. As mentioned it
has to come from the inside through the working of the Holy Spirit, and not
from the outside as we try to do it on our own.
We have to depend on the Holy Spirit to do the work that God has called
us to do as we have mentioned so many times, as we look at Ephesians 2:10 “For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” God chose us in eternity past, and then
Christ came to earth to die in our place, and then the Holy Spirit of God gave
us an effectual call that we cannot say no to, and also He gives us the Holy
Spirit to live in us to guide us to do the work that He chose for us to do in
eternity past as Eph. 2:10 shows us. So
the end result is that God receives all of the glory, as well He should. Now going back for a moment to talk more
about how we cannot do this work on our own without the Spirit of God I want to
talk for a moment about the different churches that are found in the second and
third chapters of the book of Revelation.
While studying Revelation a number of times I have learned that there
are two churches that Christ writes to that He has nothing bad to say about,
and then the one church where He has nothing at all good to say about and for
with mixed reviews. If you take away the
two that Christ has nothing bad to say about you will find that in the order
that they are in it presents a downward spiral in spirituality. The point that I want to make comes from the
first church which is actually Ephesus the church that Paul is writing to in
the letter we are studying. Paul even
told the leaders of Ephesus in Acts chapter 20 that they were going to run into
spiritual troubles, and by the time that Jesus, through John writes to them in
Revelation some 40 years later the downfall had begun. What was their problem? Jesus tells them that “they had left their
first love,” and that first love was Jesus Christ. How did this happen? They started doing things in their own effort
and were not depending on the Holy Spirit to lead them which caused disunity to
come about in their church and eventually the church fell apart, and if you
look at it today in modern day Turkey there is nothing left but ruins. This is how important depending on the Holy
Spirit to give us the bond of peace, causing churches to depend upon Him to
lead and guide us into what He desires us to do.
I
prayed diligently before beginning this SD as not only because of the subject
but also because there were times when I have to admit that I did some of these
SD’s on my own strength, and I want that to stop.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: All of this begins with humility, for I cannot
have unity of the Spirit without first beginning with humility and so through
the power of the Spirit I believe that this will come about in my life.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Lord to teach me
humility as seen in Romans 12, and Ephesians 4.
Verse that goes with yesterday’s
quotation: Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
3/4/2019 12:51 PM
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