SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/1/2021 12:08 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Worry is
unfruitful because of our Master”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 6:25
Message of the
verse: “25
"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to
what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what
you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
Well I suppose that the first thing
that I need to say is “Happy New Year” as 2020 is now behind us. The Lord is the only One who knows what will
take place in 2021, but I pray that He will continue to use the Spiritual
Diaries that I write each day to bring glory to my Lord Jesus Christ.
We ended up talking about fog as we
concluded our last SD of 2020, and have mentioned that in a similar way that
this little bit of water can affect seven blocks of a city with a great deal of
trouble worry can do the same to a person as it does not take much worry to
cause a lot of problems. This small
amount of worry affects our minds very much.
John MacArthur writes “Someone has said, ‘Worry is a thin stream of fear
that trickles through the mind which, if encouraged, will cut a channel so wide
that all our thoughts will be drained out.”
I believe that it was over a year that at the
end of my Spiritual Diaries in the “My Steps of Faith” section that I was
asking the Lord to give me contentment, and worry is the very opposite of
contentment. Contentment should be a believer’s normal and consistent state of
mind. The verses that I would think
about concerning contentment were Philippians 4:11-12 “11 Not that I speak from
want, for I have learned
to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along
with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and
every circumstance I have learned the
secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering
need.” 1 Timothy 6:6-8 is another good
section “6 But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.
7 For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of
it either. 8 If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” I want you to notice that in the Philippian
passage Paul tells us that he has learned to be content, so contentment is
something we need to learn and the Word of God is where we can learn about it
as “a Christian’s contentment is found in God, and only in God—in His
ownership, control, and provision of everything we possess and will ever need”
writes John MacArthur.
The
first thing we need to understand is that God owns everything, and that means
the entire universe. “The earth is the
LORD’S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it” writes David
in Psalm 24:1, and then in 1 Chronicles 29:11 he also states “"Yours,
O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the
majesty, indeed everything
that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and
You exalt Yourself as head over all.”
So
we need to conclude that everything that we now have belongs to the Lord, and
everything we will ever have belongs to Him.
So the question comes up “Why, then, do we worry about His taking from
us what really belongs to Him?” God
question.
We
will conclude with a quotation from MacArthur’s commentary, and then in our
next SD we will continue looking at the second point on why we should be
contentment. “One day when he was away
from home someone came running up to John Wesley saying, ‘Your house has burned
down! Your house had burned down!’ To which Wesley replied, ‘No it hasn’t,
because I don’t own a house. The one I
have been living in belongs to the Lord, and if it has burned down, that is one
less responsibility for me to worry about.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Continue to learn contentment as we are
learning in this section of Scripture.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to use me to bring glory to
His Son in 2021.
1/1/2021 12:34 PM
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