PT-2 "The Gifts of God to Individual Believers" (Eph. 4:7)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/11/2019 10:50 AM

My Worship Time                                   Focus:  PT-2 “The Gifts of God to Individual Believers”



Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 4:7



            Message of the verses:  “7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”  Romans 12:3 “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”



            The reason that I added Romans 12:3 today is to show that these verses are similar to each other as in both books Paul is about to write about the Spiritual gifts that God has given to us.

            Let us now continue look at Ephesians 4:7.  In our last SD we were looking at God’s grace, and we want to continue to do that this morning, as God’s grace has another dimension, other than God’s self-motivated, self-generated, sovereign act of living.  According to John MacArthur “God’s grace it still further above every other kind of giving.”  He goes on to say that “The greatest gift of grace is self.  ‘Grace’ is therefore God’s Self donation, His Self giving.  He not only gives blessings to men, He gives Himself.”  There could be nothing more important that God giving us the precious blessing of God giving us the gift of Himself.  MacArthur goes on to write these wonderful words to help us better understand our Gracious God:  “The incomprehensible and staggering truth of the gospel is that the holy God of the universe has given Himself to sinful mankind!   God grants us His salvation, His kingdom, His inheritance, His Spirit, His throne, His wisdom, His love, His power, His peace, His glory, and every other ‘spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’ (Eph. 1:3).  But far more than all of those blessings, He blesses us with His personal presence.  God owes nothing to sinful men except judgment for their sin.  He does not owe men the smallest blessing or favor.  Yet in His grace He has given us the blessing of all blessings, the immeasurable blessing of intimate shared life (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3-4).”  “3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

            I have to say that on this very day 47 years ago a young woman came into my life, and 17 months ago to that very day we were married, and marriage is something that one has to be careful in picking out the right mate to give your love and devotion to, and yet when God, who has chosen us before the foundation of the word, He did so out of pure grace and not for anything He saw in us that made us worthy of His care as seen in John 3:16.  When God looks down on this world all He can see is sin, and yet He gave Himself to that sinful world by giving us His Son as He came to this sinful world in order to take our place on the cross.  Christ, according to Philippians 2:5-11emptyed Himself of His own glory that He might offer glory to fallen men and giving His own life in order for spiritually dead men might live.  Hallelujah what a Savior.

            As we go through the gospels we can see that Jesus Christ was constantly giving Himself to others in things like spending much time in the training of His disciples, getting little sleep, and then healing many, many people.  Think about the woman at the well from John 4:14 where he gave to her the “living water” which saved her soul.  He cast out many demons from people who were possessed by them, giving them relief.  Paul writes about Christ ministry in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”  MacArthur adds “To those who receive His grace God will continue to ‘show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus’ throughout the ages to come (Eph. 2:7).”

            I desire to continue to look more at this wonderful subject of God’s grace in our next SD.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am very blessed to look into much more about the salvation that God has given to me through grace, and look forward to look at it some more.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to think and learn from Romans 12:3, along with Ephesians 4:7.

Today a quotation from Mark Twain:  “Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions, small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

3/11/2019 11:52 AM