The Motive for Loving Your Wife (Eph. 5:32-33)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/31/2019 9:31 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                     Focus:  “The Motive For Loving Your Wife”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 5:32-33

 

            Message of the verses:  “32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”

 

            We have already seen that Paul has pointed out in verses 23-29 that marriage is a picture of the church and its relationship to Christ.  John MacArthur writes about “This mystery” this magnificent picture that men could never discover and that was unknown to the saints of the Old Covenant but not revealed—‘is great.’  God’s new people, ‘the church’ are brought into His kingdom and His family through faith in ‘Christ.’  He is the Bridegroom and they are His bride (Rev. 21:9).  A husband’s greatest motive for loving, purifying, protecting, and caring for his wife is Christ’s love, purifying, protecting, and caring for His own bride, the church.  Christian marriage is to be loving, holy, pure, self-sacrificing, and mutually submissive because those virtues characterize the relationship of ‘Christ and the church.’”

 

            We are learning that the sacred relationship between Christian husbands and their wives is interrelated to the sacred relationship between Christ and to His church.  Now because of this great sacredness to which Paul has said, “Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.”  MacArthur writes “The use of ‘nevertheless’ (plen) is intended to end the discussion and emphasize what in it is most essential to remember.

 

            “When Christian husbands and wives walk in the power of the Spirit, yield to His Word and His control, and are mutually submissive, they are brought much honor.”

 

            So we have come to the end of chapter five which we began on the 18^th of May of this year which I can hardly believe that it took so long, but there have been many things that we have learned from this chapter.  I have mentioned that the chapter divisions in the Bible are not something that are inspired by God, but were done by men to help us better understand the Word of God.  There are some chapter divisions that in my opinion could have been done in a better way like the division between Isaiah chapters 52-53, and also in this chapter division between Ephesians 5 and 6, for as we begin chapter six we are still talking about relationships like parents and their children and also workers and who they work for, so we will still be looking at relationships as we begin chapter six, and that means that we are still talking about being filled with the Holy Spirit in order to make sure that these relationships will bring glory to our Lord.  Healthy relationships mean healthy countries and the family is the basic of how countries run.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s quotation from Love in Action:

 

Preach the Word!  Be ready in season and out of season

Convince, rebuke, exhort, [encourage],

with all longsuffering and teaching.

II Timothy 4:12

 

8/31/2019 11:21 AM

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

           

           

PT-3 "Unbreakable Love" (Eph. 5:31)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/30/2019 8:42 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  PT-3 “Unbreakable Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:31

 

            Message of the verse:  “"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (NKJV).

 

            In our last SD I promised to give a quotation from the early church Father John Chrysostom who wrote:

 

“Hast thou seen the measure of obedience?  Here also is the measure of love.  Wouldst thou that thy wife shouldst obey thee as the church doth love Christ?  Then have care thyself for her as Christ does for the church, and if it be needful that thou shouldst give thy life for her, or be cut to pieces a thousand times, or endure anything whatsoever, refuse it not.  Christ brought His church to His feet by His great love, not by threats or any such thing, and so do thou conduct thyself toward thy wife.”

 

            There is the story of a man who said that he loved his wife too much, and so someone asked him if he loved her as much as Christ loved the church, to which he replied no.  When the man answered no he was then told “Then you must love her more.”

 

            Let us look at what Peter admonished in 1 Peter 3:7 “7  You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”  John MacArthur writes “Here we see at least three commands.  First, a husband is to be considerate to his wife.  To treat your wife in an understanding way is to treat her with sensitivity and consideration.  Over and over we hear wives saying—usually with justification—that their husbands do not understand them, are not sensitive to their feelings and their needs, and do not communicate with them.  The fact that a husband may have many pressures and worries of his own is no excuse for his being insensitive to his wife, whom God commands him to love and care for as Christ loves and cares for the church.

 

            “Second, Peter teaches that a husband is to be chivalrous to his wife as ‘a weaker vessel.’  True chivalry is not simply a formality of polite society; it reflects the attitude men should have toward all women, particularly their own wives.  A husband’s courtesy toward his wife not only pleases her but also God.

 

            “Third, Peter tells husbands to honor their wives ‘as a fellow heir of the grace of life.’  Husbands and wives should be the best of friends, not only in family matters and daily activities, but in spiritual things as well.  A husband who is not considerate of his wife and who does not honor and respect her in defective in his spiritual life, and his prayers will ‘be hindered.’

 

            “The husband who give his wife consideration courtesy, and honor contributes to the beauty and strength of his marriage and give an invaluable example and legacy to his children.”

 

            I must stress again that in order to do these things that a man is commanded to do, that is love his wife as Christ love His church, he must be filled with the Holy Spirit.  When a person is drunk with wine that person is under the control of the alcohol that is in the wine and so when a person in filled with the Holy Spirit that person in under the control of the Spirit doing things that the Spirit desires to be done through that person.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am to make sure that there is no unconfessed sin in my life so that the Holy Spirit can continually keep me filled so then I can love my wife as Christ loves His church.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  It takes humility to love my wife as Christ loves the church and it takes being filled with the Spirit to be humble.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action:”

 

“Encouragement is like a pebble thrown into water.  While there is always an immediate impact, the ripples continue indefinitely.  You never know what will happen with that kind word, that written note, that warm touch you give to a grieving, hurting person.  You could start something that will never end.”

 

8/30/2019 9:09 AM

PT-2 "Unbreakable Love" (Eph. 5:31)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2019 8:45 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  PT-2 “Unbreakable Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:31

 

            Message of the verses:  “31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (NKJV).

 

            We continue to look at the theme of unbreakable love in this SD.  In our last SD we ended up talking about God’s dealings with Israel, and although He had dealt harshly with that nation He stilled loved the people of Israel.  We looked at Jeremiah 3:8 at the end of our SD and I want to repeat this verse as we begin this SD “"And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.”  I want to point out that when Jeremiah wrote his book that it was during the time when Judah and Jerusalem were about to be defeated by the Babylonians and so it was the end of Judah’s reign when God’s Spirit spoke through Jeremiah to write what he had written.  This divorce that God gave to Israel was not to say that done with the believers in Israel.  Remember what Paul said in the book of Romans 9:6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.”  Paul is speaking of those who are believers that come out of Israel are true Israel.  We then quoted three verses from the prophet Mal. who wrote after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon:  “16  Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. 17 “They will be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." 18 So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him” (Mal. 3:16-18).

 

            John MacArthur writes “That is the sort of bond God ordained for marriage.  It is not everlasting as far as eternity is concerned, but it is lasting as far as the earthly lives of the husband and wife are concerned.  Though He has made provision for divorce in the cases of unrepentant and continued adultery (Matt. 5:31-32; 19:4-10) and the departure of an unbelieving spouce (1 Cor. 7:15), death is God’s only desired dissolution for marriage.

 

            “Just as the body of Christ is indivisible, God’s ideal design for marriage is that it be indivisible.  As Christ is one with His church, husbands are one with their wives.  Therefore when a husband harms his wife he harms himself.  A husband who violates his marriage violates himself.  A husband who destroys his marriage destroys a part of himself.”

 

            Jesus said the following in Matthew 19:5-6 “5 and said, ’FOR THIS REASON A

MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.’”  The Pharisees asked Jesus about what Moses had said about a man divorcing his wife and Jesus replied that he did that because of the hardness of your hearts, speaking of the husband’s heart.  Jesus then goes on to talk about continued adultery as the only reason for a divorce to be granted.  So what we see here is that Jesus made clear that God, through Moses, only “permitted” divorce and did not ever “commanded” it, as this is what the Jewish leaders had claimed for many years.  MacArthur adds “The bill of divorcement was to protect the offended wife, who would then be allowed to marry again without becoming guilty of adultery.  That is the only provision that either Moses or Jesus gives for divorce.”

 

            We can see from the book of Hosea that it is not God’s will that even adultery break the marriage relationship.  We know that the book of Hosea is a picture of how God loves Israel as Hosea was to marry a prostitute and have children with her, and yet his wife Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea and this pictures Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, and yet Hosea continues to forgive Gomer even though she was unfaithful to him, so we can picture that if a wife is unfaithful to her husband, or husband to his wife that unless the unfaithfulness continues and seems that it will never stop then Jesus states that a divorce is to be given, but as in the case of Hosea and Gomer, Hosea continued to forgive his wife just as God continues to forgive Israel.  It was God who restored the marriage of Hosea and Gomer the same way He will restore Israel as we have already learned in our study of the book of Revelation, and also when Paul writes in Romans 9:26 that there is coming a day when all Israel will be saved.

 

            John MacArthur writes “When a husband sees faults and failures in his wife—even if she is as unfaithful and wanton as Gomer—he should realize that she has not offended him to a fraction of the degree to which he has offended God.  God has immeasurably more for which to forgive us than we could ever have for which to forgive others. 

 

            We will continue this subject in our next SD, Lord willing as we will site a quote from the early church Father John Chrysostom at that time.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  When problems come in the marriage it takes much prayer and patience as God will work things out.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:   We have been talking about humility in this section for this entire year, and learned that humility can only be accomplished in a person’s life as they are filled with the Holy Spirit.  It is then when we look at Ephesians 5:18-6:9 that Paul is stating that in order to have a good marriage, and raise your children right and get along with those you work with you have to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action:”

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of

Mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our

Tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who

Are in any trouble, with the comfort with which

We ourselves are comforted by God.

II Corinthians 1:3, 4

 

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Ecclesiastes 11:1

 

8/29/2019 9:50 AM

PT-1 "Unbreakable Love" (Eph. 5:31)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2019 10:22 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  PT-1 “Unbreakable Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:31

 

            Message of the verses:  31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (NKJV).

 

            Ephesians 5:31 is a direct quote from Genesis 2:24 and in Genesis chapter two God gives us another aspect of creation along with Adam naming the different animals that God had created.  As Adam named the different animals he noticed that all of them had mates and so this probably was disturbing to him as he had no mate at the time.  God solved that problem as He performed the first operation and took a rib from Adam to use to create Eve and then Adam stated what is seen in verse 24 of Genesis.  Marriage has not changed from the time that God created Adam and Eve in the eyes of God and so marriage has in it what our theme is for today’s SD and that is “unbreakable love.”

 

            I have listened to different sermons or talks in marriage ceremonies along with marriages seminars that talk of the importance of breaking it off between the parents and their children who have gotten married.  When parents continue to try and rule their children after they get married you will find nothing but trouble.  I think a wise parent can suggest things to their newly married children, but suggesting is much different than trying to rule over them.  They are a new unit and need to operate as being a newly formed unit as they certainly are in the eyes of God. 

 

            John MacArthur writes “Proskollao (cleave) literally means to be glued or cemented together.  Husbands and wives are to leave their parents and to cleave to, be cemented to, each other.  They break one set of ties as they establish the other, and the second is more binding and permanent that the first.”

 

            We read in Malachi 2:16 that God says “I hate divorce,” and God has always hated divorce and will continue to hate divorce.  The reason is that it destroys that which He has ordained to be unbreakable.  God hates divorce on any terms and for any reason.  We see that Jesus spoke of this with the Pharisees and told them that they were not to divorce their wife for any reason with the exception of adultery.  When He was talking about adultery He was talking about continued adultery, and not a first time and then never happen again.  Jesus Christ is always forgiving of believers and so husbands and wives are to be the same, forgiving one another.  Jesus Christ does not separate Himself from believers who sin and so that should be true of husbands and wives.

 

            In the OT we see that Israel was repeatedly unfaithful to God, and that unfaithfulness is often referred to in the OT as spiritual adultery.  When God chose Israel as His people He determined to love them with an everlasting love as seen in Jeremiah 31:3.  It was only after unrelenting spiritual adultery and rejection of Him that God finally gave Israel a divorce:  “"And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also” (Jer. 3:8).  However that was not to say that God had rejected the true believers within the nation, who were secure in His saving grace as can be seen in Mal. 3:16-18, and with the quotation of those verses we will end this SD.  “16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. 17 “They will be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." 18 So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Anyone who has been married for any length of time knows that when two sinful people come together in marriage there are bound to be some troubles from time to time, but when that happens I am to remember that this covenant that I made with my wife is permanent.  It has been permanent for over 46 years by the grace of God.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I had a very profitable lunch meeting with my Pastor yesterday talking about humility and the filling of the Holy Spirit, and for that I am thankful to God and to him.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action:” “Love insists we do something.  Feelings follow action.  Feelings are the fruit, not the root, of love.  If you give your enemy something to eat or drink, something happens to your feelings.  When you invest yourself in someone, you begin to feel differently toward him or her.”

 

8/28/2019 10:56 AM

Caring Love (Eph. 5:28-30)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/27/2019 10:35 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                          Focus: “Caring Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 5:28-30

 

            Message of the verses:  “28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body.”

 

            We have learned that the church is called the “body of Jesus Christ,” and as we look at these verses we see that the husband should love his own wife as he loves his body.  Some men may not believe that they love their own body, but think about how much time you spend caring for your body and you will see that you actually do love your own body.  We as husbands are to care for our wife to the extent as we for our wife’s welfare as we do for our own body.

 

            I suppose that in our generation that both men and women care more for their bodies than ever before.  Vitamins, exercise, clothing and many other things seem to be more important today than ever before.  The amount of money spent on personal needs for our bodies is many times over what was spent in centuries before us.

 

            As Christians we know that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit thus we should take proper care of our bodies as we give them the right food, maintaining reasonable strength, getting enough rest, and other things we won’t take the time to mention.  “When we have a healthy body we have a sense of well-being; and when a husband meets the needs of his wife—with the same care and concern with which he meets the needs of his body—he will also have a sense of well-being and pleasure as a by-product of his love.”

 

            “The husband who loves his wife as Christ loves the church will no more do anything to harm her than he would to harm his own flesh.  His desire to nourish and cherish her just as he nourishes and cherishes his own body—because that is how Christ also does the church” (MacArthur Commentary on Ephesians).

 

            When a husband looks at his wife as a cook, housekeeper, occasional companion, and sex partner he is not loving her as Christ loves the church.  Paul wrote in Philippians 4:19 that God supplies “all [our] needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” and so we are to do this for our wives.  Now again I want to mention that Pau, in this section of Ephesians beginning with 5:18 is talking about things to be done in the power of the Holy Spirit as He fills our lives to accomplish the things He desires us to do and for husbands it is to love their wife as Christ loves the church.

 

            One of the things that the husband is to do is to nourish a wife and provide for her needs and to give that which helps her grow and mature in favor with God and man.  Now to cherish her is to use tender love and physical affection to give her warmth, comfort, protection and also security, as women truly love to know that they are safe.

            John MacArthur concludes:  “Christ provides for us as His church because we are members of His body.  Not to provide for His church would be not to provide for Himself.  He shares common life with His church, and we are members of His body, His flesh and bones, His present incarnation on earth.  Paul said, ‘The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him’ ((1 Cor. 6:17), and again, ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me’ (Gal. 2:20).

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I once again am learning the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit in order for me to love my wife as Christ loves His Church.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  From the beginning of this year up until now and beyond I am learning about humility and the biggest thing that I have learned about it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that I will be humble.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”

 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate

your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who

Curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those

Who spitefully use you and persecute you.

Matthew 5:43-44

 

8/27/2019 11:06 AM

PT-2 "Purifying Love" (Eph. 5:26-27)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/26/2019 9:19 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                           Focus:  PT-2 “Purifying Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:26-27

 

            Message of the verses:  “26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

 

            In John MacArthur’s commentary he writes about a two Christian couples and their views on the magazine Playboy, and the one man stated in an interview that he would never have anything to do with it, while the other Christian man said that he and his wife read it and I suppose look at the pictures in it.  He said that it enhances their marriage, however he was certainly wrong about that and should have been in agreement with the first man.  The second man has totally misunderstood about purifying love for his wife.

 

            Now there are far too many times that I have seen young men tell young women that they are in love with them, when in truth they are lusting over them, and of course this is not a purifying kind of love that they have for them, only hormonal love.  Married men should never flirt with other women as this is sinful and shows their need to have more of a purifying love for their wives and could also cause the breakdown of the marriage if the other woman took this seriously.

 

            John MacArthur writes “In ancient Greece, a bride-to-be would be taken down to a river to be bathed and ceremonially cleansed from every defilement of her past life.  Whatever her life had been before, it was now symbolically purified and she would enter the marriage without any moral or social blemish—the past was washed away.

 

            In an immeasurably greater way Christ gave Himself up for the church, that ‘he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.’  His cleansing of believers in not ceremonial and symbolic, but real and complete.

 

            “The soteriological truth in this analogy is that saving grace makes believers holy through the cleansing agency of the Word of God, so that they may be presented to Christ as His pure Bride, forever to dwell in His love.  It is with that same purpose and in that same love that husbands are to cultivate the purity, righteousness, and sanctity of their wives.”

 

            Now I have to say that humanly this is totally impossible to do, for one thing in order to love your wife in this way the first thing that you have to be is a believer, and the second thing is that you have to have a growing relationship with the Lord so that you can understand this truth.  And another thing that is extremely important is that you have to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit of God so that He can live His life through you in order to love your wife as Christ loves the church.

            Spiritual meaning for my life:  To continue to learn and understand the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit and to learn what my part is in this.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I have been writing about humility since the beginning of this year, knowing that humility is very important to be and first of all to understand.  I can say that I have learned many things about humility and I can also say that there has been a great spiritual battle going on inside of me as I am sure that Satan does not want me to learn about this.  The important thing for me is to learn about being filled with the Holy Spirit continually so that I can then do the things that God has planned for me to do in eternity past.

 

Today’s quotations from “Love in Action” comes from page 15:   “Christ provided the crowning example of how to respond to our enemies when from the cross He prayed for those who were abusing Him.  And here in Romans He tells us He died for us even when we were yet His enemies.”

 

8/26/2019 10:02 AM

PT-1 "Purifying Love" (Eph. 5:26-27)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/25/2019 9:20 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                           Focus:  PT-1 “Purifying Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 5:26-27

 

            Message of the verses:  “26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

 

            When a husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church it can be described as doing it with a purifying love.  John MacArthur writes “Divine love does not simply condemn wrong in those loved but seeks to cleanse them from it. Christ’s great love for His church does not allow Him to be content with any sin, any moral or spiritual impurity in it.  God tells His people, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool’ (Isa. 1:18).  He cast the sins of His forgiven children ‘into the depths of the sea’ (Mic. 7:19), and He forgives their iniquity and remembers their sin no more (Jer. 31:34).”

 

            We have been over the gospel message man times in these SD’s and learned that once a person become a believer in Jesus Christ, making Him Lord and Savior all of His sins are forgiven.  Then when a believer sins he or she is to confess their sin to the Lord as 1 John 1:9 tells us and the example is found in John’s gospel where we read of Jesus washing His disciples feet “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you’ (John 13:10).  Jesus was speaking of Judas who would later on that evening betray Jesus. 

 

            In the next statement that MacArthur has in his commentary it truly speaks volumes to me, although it is something that I know, but needed a reminder.  “Love wants only the best for the one it loves, and it cannot bear for a loved one to be corrupted or misled by anything evil or harmful.”  He then goes on to put into the context of the husband by writing “When a husband’s love for his wife is like Christ’s love for His church, he will continually seek to help purify her from any sort of defilement.  He will seek to protect her from the world’s contamination and protect her holiness, virtue, and purity in every way.  He will never induce her to do that which is wrong or unwise or expose her to that which is less than good.”

 

            Well because it is Sunday evening this SD will be short, but Lord willing we will complete this section in our next SD.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”:

 

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still

Sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been

Justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through

Him.  For if we were enemies we were reconciled

To God through the death of His Son, much more,

Having been reconciled, we shall be

saved by His life.

Romans 5:8-10

 

8/25/2019 9:42 PM

PT-3 "Sacrificial Love" (Eph. 5:25b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/24/2019 6:03 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                         Focus:  PT-3 “Sacrificial Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:25b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and gave Himself up for her.

 

            We have written about that a husband is willing to give up his life for his wife like Christ did for the church, and if the husband is willing to do this then the husband should be willing to sacrifice lesser things for her.  He should be willing to put his own likes, desires, opinions, preferences, and welfare aside if that is required to pleas her and meet her needs.  The husband is to die to self in order to live for his wife, because that is what Christ’s kind of love demands, and that is what submission is about.  Now of course this cannot be done on his own, or in the flesh, but can only be done by the filling of the Holy Spirit, otherwise it will not truly be possible.

 

            John MacArthur writes “The true spirituality of a church leader is not measured best by how well he leads a deacons’ or elders’ meeting, by the way he participates in Sunday school, or by the way he speaks from the pulpit—but by the way he treats his wife and children at home when no one else is around.  Nowhere is our relationship to God better tested than in our relationship to our family.  The man who plays the part of a spiritual shepherd in church  but who lacks love and care in his home is guilty of spiritual fraud.”

 

            As we look at this very penetrating statement from above we know that it is not what the world tells a man how he should live out his life, in fact the world that we live in today is different than the time period when MacArthur wrote this commentary when the world wanted a macho type of man, but now true to the decline of the man’s role in our society the world wants a man who doesn’t even act like a man at all as the curse of what happened to the woman back in Genesis chapter three which says that the woman wants to rule over her husband is truly seen in our society today. 

 

            We will finish with a rather long quote from John MacArthur which he begins by writing “To regularly remind myself of the essence of this self-sacrificing love, I have on my desk the following words from an unknown source:

 

“When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught, and you sting and hurt with the insult of the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ—that is dying to self.  When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence—that is dying to self.  When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, and irregularity, or any annoyance, when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus endured it—that is dying to self.  When your are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any attitude, any interruption by the will of God—that is dying to self.  When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown—that is dying to self.  When you see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances—that is dying to self.  When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself, can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart—that is dying to self.”

 

            As I read over the things that are written on this SD which are quotes from this unknown person and also the quotes from John MacArthur I realize that I can never do these things on my own, and that is why this section that we have been looking at begins with “do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit,” I realize that that is the only way any of this will ever be accomplished in my life, to which God will receive the glory for at that time great things He has done in my life.

 

            I have to say that at the beginning of this year when I desired to better understand humility that I have been going through some very difficult situations within me, and I full well believe that God is answering my desire to learn about humility and with that is teaching me that at all times I need to be filled with His Holy Spirit.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”: “Agape is love that comes from a God who is love.  It is love lavished upon others without a thought or whether they are worthy to receive it.  It is this kind of love that is to characterize the Christian.  This is totally selfless love that comes from God.  Agape is the power that moves us to respond to someone’s needs with no expectation of reward.  At least fifty-five times in the New Testament we are commanded to love.  It is one of Scripture’s most repeated, inescapable directives for the believer.  It touches us in all of our relationships and affects us in each of the many roles we play as parents, spouses, children, friends, and fellow believers.  It even defines the way we are to respond to our enemies.”

 

8/24/2019 6:47 AM

PT-2 "Sacrificial Love" (Eph. 5:25b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/23/2019 11:06 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                          Focus:  PT-2 “Sacrificial Love”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:25b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and gave Himself up for her.”

 

            I stated in our last SD that we would begin this SD by talking about the Good Samaritan, and his expression of love to the man who was beaten and robbed was based on his own generous character and also on that man’s severe need, as the man that the Samaritan who was attending to was probably gone to be left for dead if the Samaritan had not come along.  It really did not matter whether the man deserved his care as this did not really enter into the picture that Jesus was painting with His Words.  Jesus loved His disciples’ feet, and the reason was because He loved them and it was His desire to serve them, and this was not because they deserved even that most menial of services.  Jesus loved them despite their selfishness, pride, ambition, self-indulgence, jealousy, or even their fickleness.  There is no doubt that Jesus felt great sorrow and pain because of their continued selfishness after three years of being with Him in intimate fellowship.  Just a little more thought on this and that is that we know that God hates and cannot tolerate sin, and yet Jesus lived with sinful people the entire time that He was on this earth, and that to me is amazing.  Jesus did not love and serve them on the basis of those feelings but on the basis of His own loving nature, so it was not so much the feelings that He had for His sinful disciples, as it was because of His loving nature.  Another reason He washed their feet was to give an example of what every disciple of His is commanded to do.  “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).  And then a little while latter Jesus said “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John. 13:34).

 

            John MacArthur writes “Where there is need, love acts, with no consideration or deserving or worth (cf. 1 John 3:16).  God’s love is its own justification; and when we love as He loves, our love is also its own justification, because it is like His love.  God did not love the world and send His own Son to redeem it because it was worthy of that love.  It was totally unworthy of His love; and when His love came in human flesh, the world despised it, rejected it, and threw it back in God’s face.  Yet Jesus Christ, as God’s incarnate love, did not flinch or turn away or become resentful.  He preached and taught and bled and died, because that is what divine love demanded.

 

            “Love does whatever needs to be done and does not count cost or merit.  It reaches out and helps, leads, teaches, warns, or encourages.  Whatever is needed it gives.  Whether its help is received or rejected, appreciated or resented, love continues as long as the need continues.”

 

            Now if the Christian who loves because of what other people may do for him or if he loves because they are attractive, they do not love as God loves.  This is true of the Christian husband, for if he only loves his wife because she is attractive or pleasing temperament he is not loving as Christ loves.  The husband who loves his wife for what she can give him loves as the world loves, not as Christ loves.  The husband who loves his wife as Christ loves His church gives everything he has for his wife, and this includes his life if necessary.

 

Quotation from “Love in Action” for today:  “Beloved, if God so love us, we also ought to love one another:  No one has seen God at any time.  If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.  Bu this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit, (1 John 4:11-14).”

 

8/23/2019 11:34 PM