PT-3 "The Plea" (Eph. 5:1-2a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/21/2019 9:26 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  PT-3 “The Plea”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:1-2a

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love,”

 

            In our last SD we were talking about love and we want to continue talking about love and begin by talking about what the greatest evidence of love is.  The greatest evidence of love is that there is undeserved forgiveness.  I hope that as believers we do not take this lightly as if it were not for God’s love for us then He would not have sent His Son to earth to die for us, and if that did not happen then all human beings would end up in hell, a place that was made for the devil and his angels.  Let us look at what probably is the most famous verse in the entire Word of God:  “"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  John MacArthur comments on this by writing “God’s love brought man’s forgiveness.  God loved the world with such a great love that He offered forgiveness to sinful, rebellious, wretched, vile mankind, by sending His own Son to give His life on the cross that they might not suffer death.  He offered the world the free gift of eternal fellowship with Him.”  As I said at the beginning of this paragraph we cannot take this love of God for granted.

 

            I have mentioned the parable that Jesus spoke of about forgiveness in an earlier SD about the man who was forgiven a huge debt, a debt so large that no one could pay it back, and yet the person he owed it to forgave the dept, but afterwards the man went after another man who owed him only a small dept, yet he would not forgive that dept.  Once the person who forgave the large debt found out about it he went after the man who owed him the large debt to ask him why he would not forgive such a small dept when such a large dept was forgiven to him.  Sometimes in life there is someone who does something terrible to you and you have a very difficult time in forgiving that person, and yet if you are a believer you must think about the fact that you have been forgiven every sin you ever committed or will commit and so you must forgive the person who did a terrible thing to you.  Let us look again at Ephesians 4:32 “32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”  Notice again the highlighted portion of this verse.  John MacArthur writes that “Nothing more clearly discloses a hard, loveless heart than lack of forgiveness.  Lack of forgiveness betrays lack of love (see Eph. 4:31).  The presence of forgiveness always proves the presence of love, because only love as the motive and power to forgive.  The extent of our love is the extent of our ability to forgive.”  “31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Eph. 4:31).  The sin that a believer has done against you or me, no matter how awful has been paid for by what Christ did on the cross, Christ has forgiven them.  We as believers are not to express, or even harbor vengeance toward another believer as when and if we do this we not only sin by allowing selfish hatred to control us, but we sin by profaning Christ’s sacrifice—by seeking to mete out punishment for a sin whose penalty has already been paid for by the Lord.  I know that these are difficult things to deal with, and yet if one thinks about it the one who has not forgiven another person is probably the one who is the most miserable. 

 

            John MacArthur writes “Because Christ has paid the penalty for every sin, we have no right to hold any sin against any person, even a nonbeliever.  Peter thought that forgiving someone ‘up to seven times’ was generous.  But Jesus said, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven’ (Matt. 18:22).  In Christ all our ‘sins are forgiven for His name’s sake’ (1 John 2:12); He has ‘forgiven us all our transgressions’ (Col. 2:13, emphasis added).  ‘In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace’ (Eph. 1:7).” 

 

            There is more to be written about this subject of love and forgiveness, but as in the case of other passages we have looked at in Ephesians I can only do so much in a day because of the passage being so hard for me to take.  John MacArthur talks about the word that Peter uses in 1 Peter 4:8 which is “fervent” and says that it’s Greek meaning is about a muscle that is stretched to its limit, and this is kind of what happens to me as I study these very difficult passages.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It seems to me that selfishness is the subject of this section, and what I mean is that God was selfless in His forgiveness, yet I suppose there are times when I am selfish in my forgiveness and this cannot be. 

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Since I as a believer are to be like Christ, then because of the fact that Christ is humble then I too am to be humble.  When I think about the humbleness of Christ I have to think about what He went through when and before He was put on the cross, that certainly is humility.

 

Verse that goes along with yesterday’s quote is Proverbs 15:23 “A man has joy by the answer of His mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!”

 

5/21/2019 10:14 AM