The Right Commitment and More from Eph. 6:5-8

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/19/2019 9:07 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                          Focus:  The Right Commitment

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:5-8

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.”

 

            John MacArthur writes “The fourth qualification for proper submission to masters, or employers, is that of ‘sincerity of heart.’  It is not hypocritical and superficial but genuine and thorough.

            “Paul told the Thessalonian believers to ‘excel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you; so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need’ (1 Thes. 4:10-12). The idea is to do well then work we are assigned to do, without complaining, bragging, criticizing the work of others, or in any other way being disruptive.”

 

The Right Motive:

 

            I have mentioned that in everything we do we are to bring glory to God, as seen in the Westminster Catechism where we read that we are to bring glory to God in all we do and enjoy the Lord forever.  This includes the work that we do in order to make a living, and also the work that we do for the Lord in things like our giving to the Lord, are devotional time with the Lord, or perhaps our ministries like teaching a Bible study or Sunday school class, it is all to be done to the glory of God.  I think at times believers can seem to think about their work in making a living as a time that is different from our time in worshiping the Lord, however worshiping the Lord is 24/7/365, and this includes your work to make a living.

 

            God does not call every believer into preaching the Word as Pastors, but as we saw in the quote above from John MacArthur quoting Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians we can see that believers are to work at a job, and not just sit around and wait for the Lord to return which is what some of those Thessalonians were doing.  Doing that does not bring glory to the Lord.

 

            Now we have one more sub-section to do, which will take a bit longer to complete and so we will wait until tomorrow, Lord willing, to do that.

 

Quotation from Love in Action:  “The church needs to be a place where we can be built up and not beat up.  The instruction (rather, the command) to encourage one another is found five times in the New Testament.  It’s addressed to all believers.  It is not conditional.  It is not optional.  It’s a command!”

 

9/19/2019 9:35 AM