SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/3/2019
10:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-5 “Equipping”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
4:12
Message of the
verse: “for
the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the
body of Christ;”
As we continue to look at equipping
we should understand that the great need of the church has always been
spiritual maturity. Things have to be
passed on to the younger people in the church and for that matter for the older
ones too in order for the church to continue to be used by God. An example of how churches fell to be
actually worthless can be found in the book of Revelation chapters 2-3 where we
read of seven churches there and only two were totally worthy in the eyes of
the all seeing Jesus Christ. The other
five show a spiritual downward spiral beginning in the church of Ephesus where
we read that that church “lost their first love.” This is the first step in that downward spiral
and it ends with the church at Laodicea where we read that Jesus Christ was
actually on the outside of the church looking in as He was knocking on the door
of the church trying to get in.
In many churches today the main focus
is on entertaining. We know that we have
learned that God’s Spirit gifts every believer, but not for entertainment, but
for the building up of the body of Christ, and this will glorify the Lord, not entertainment.
I have mentioned that when our
Pastor went to Peru earlier this year that he saw the growth of the church in
that country which began slowly back in the 1930’s with only a few churches and
now there are at least 500 churches there.
It started out slowly and that is the best way as believers begin to
grow because of the teaching and preaching of the Word done by the
Pastor-Teacher and the evangelists, and this is able to be done as the
pastor-teacher and the evangelists have the time to study the Word so that they
can be led by the Holy Spirit to teach what He desires for them to teach in
order to equip the believers in the church.
If the Pastor is involved in all different areas of things in the church
then he can suffer what is called burnout and when that happens the Word of God
is not preached in the way that it should be in order to equip the saints in
the church. I remember hearing in one of
the sermons that John MacArthur was preaching on this book of Ephesians where
he went back to when he first was a candidate at the church where he has now
been there for 50 years and the elders of the church ask him what he wanted to
do and he told them that he wanted to be able to study the Word of God each day
in order to be able to preach to the people in the church so that they would be
equipped to do the things that they are to do.
God used him, and is still using him in ways that no one knew what would
happen except the Lord.
MacArthur writes “The first concern
of the leadership of the church should be for the filled seats, not the empty
ones. When a young preacher complained
to Charles Spurgeon that his own congregation was too small, Spurgeon replied, ‘Well,
maybe it is as large as you’d like to give account for in the Day of Judgment.’
“Spiritual growth does not always
involve learning something new. Our most
important growth often is in regard to truth we have already heard but have not
fully applied. Peter wrote, ‘I shall
always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know
them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. And I consider it right, as long as I am in
this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder,…that at any time after
my departure you may be able to call these to mind’ (2 Peter 1:12-13). The great truths of the Word of God can never
be mastered or overlearned. The battle
with our unredeemed flesh necessitates constant reminding. As long as a pastor
has breath he should preach those truths, and as long his congregation has breath
it should hear them.”
The story is told in the
Arab-Israeli war of an American reporter flying over the Sinai desert with an
Israeli officer and saw a number if Egyptian soldiers who were without
water. The story got out and instead of just
doing something about the problem the officials had to talk it over and finally
when they figured out what to do many of the soldiers died. In response to this story MacArthur writes “How
equally tragic it is for churches to spin their wheels in programs and
committees while thousands around them are desperately in need of the spiritual
water of the Word.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I think
that in the things that I pray daily for our Pastor, that I need to add to that
list that he will not burn himself out, but to just do the things that the Lord
wants him to do and that is to preach and teach the Word of God, something that
he is doing a wonderful job of, but my prayer will be that he does not involve
himself in the other matters of the church which can be accomplished by the
other church leaders including the other pastors and the deacons.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that
the Lord, in His own way will continue to teach me humility as found in Romans
12:3.
Today’s Bible
verse that goes along with yesterdays quotation, Proverbs 15:23 “A man has joy
by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is.”
4/3/2019 10:48
AM
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