SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/16/2019
10:01 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Means of Being Filled”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:18b
Message
of the verse: “but let the Spirit stimulate your souls” (Phillips).
I need to
begin with a couple of things before we get into looking at the subject at
hand. First of all we are looking at the
second sub-section under the main section of “The command,” and next I want to
say that this subject has been kind of a difficult one for me to truly
understand, and so I am excited to continue to look at what the filling of the
Holy Spirit is all about for me as a believer in Jesus Christ.
We see
from the title of this main section “The Command” that the filling of the Holy
Spirit is commanded from our God and we can be sure that God commands nothing
for which He does not provide the means to obey that command. Another thing we need to understand that if
God commands something then we need to pray for it. I have mentioned that in the book of Daniel
that Daniel knew that the Lord was going to send the children of Israel back to
the Promised Land 70 years after they were first taken captive and so once that
time got close then Daniel prayed for this to happen, and it surely did
happen. This gives me something that I
must pray for as far as God’s command of me as a believer to pray that I will
be filled with the Holy Spirit. I must
realize that it is God’s deepest desire that each of His children, including
me, be filled with His Spirit. I only
need to discover the resources He has provided to carry out this obedience, and
I look forward to understanding them.
John
MacArthur writes “To ‘be filled with the Spirit’ involves confession of sin,
surrender of will, intellect, body, time, talent, possessions, and
desires. It requires the death of
selfishness and the slaying of self-will.
When we die to self, the Lord fills with His Spirit. The principle stated by John the Baptist
applies to the Spirit as well as to Christ:
‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3:30).”
I apologize
that this will be a really short SD this evening as my wife and I were gone
from our house most all of today as we went with a senior’s church group to
view a play in what we in Ohio call “Amish Country.” To top it off on the way home I had to drive
through a very bad thunder storm, and I am thankful to the Lord that He got us
home safely.
Today’s verse that goes along with yesterday’s quotation
from John Wesley is from Matthew 28:19 “God therefore and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.”
7/16/2019 10:18 PM
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