SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/20/2019
10:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Plea”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephes.
5:1-2a
Message of the
verses: “1
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love,”
We looked at some of the
characteristics of God in our last SD which came from Ephesians 4:32, and
stated that we are to mimic those as we live out the Christian life. That seems to be a difficult thing to do but
only by His grace it is possible to reflect Him even in our present
limitations.
We realize that there are many more
characteristics or we could call them attributes that the Lord posses other
than found in Ephesians 4:32, and in order to help us find them we must study
the Word of God. In the Word of God we
will find His revelation of Himself, His great Self-disclosure. However the more we learn of God’s character
the more we learn how far above us that God is and how impossible in ourselves
it is to fulfill the command to be like Him, to be absolutely perfect, just as
He is, something we spoke of yesterday when we look at what Peter wrote. MacArthur writes “That is why we need ‘to be
strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man’ in order to ‘be
filled up to all the fulness of God’ (Eph. 3:16, 19). The only wa we can become ‘imitators of God’
is for the Lord Jesus Christ to live His perfect life through us. We are totally dependent on His Spirit to
become like Him. If we are to obey Paul’s
admonition to the Corinthians, ‘let all that you do be done in love’ (1 Cor.
16:14), we must submit to the controlling influence of the Spirit.”
In our church service last evening
we had to vote on a man to be the administrator of our Christian school, and
even though I did not know this man I know his father fairly well as I have
heard him preach many times. His son
spoke in the evening service and also in a combined Sunday school class and one
of the things that I noticed right away was how much he is like his father,
which made me believe that he was the man for the job. Through Jesus Christ God has given us the
right to become His children as seen in John 1:12; and Gal. 3:26. When we go back to the beginning of this
letter we see that God “predestined us to be adoption as sons through Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will (Eph. 1:5). Now it is because our heavenly Father is
holy, we are to be holy. As we go
through some of the other characteristics He has like being kind, forgiving, we
are to be kind and forgiving too. There
is another one that is near and dear to my heart, especially this year and that
is because God in Christ humbled Himself, we are to humble ourselves. Because God is love we as His beloved
children are to walk in love. MacArthur
concludes “This ability is
not natural, however, but supernatural—requiring a new nature and the
continuous power of the Holy Spirit flowing through us by obedience to God’s
Word.”
Lord willing we will continue to
look at this section in our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: One of
the problems that I have when it comes to believing that the Lord will work
through me is that I don’t think that I am worthy to do something for Him that
will bring Him glory. I realize that
every person who is a born-again believer is not worthy, but that doesn’t make
it easier for me at times.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Accomplishing
the task of humbling myself is a frightening thing for me to do, and cannot be
done without the word of the Spirit of God in my life.
Verse that goes
with our last quotation: “A man has joy
by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!”
(Proverbs 15:23).
5/20/2019 10:37
AM
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