PT-1 "Assurance to Spiritual Fathers" (1 JOhn 2:13a, 14a)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/23/2024 9:50 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                   Focus:  PT-1 “Assurance to Spiritual Fathers”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                Reference:  1 John 2:13a, 14a

 

            Message of the verses:  “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning….I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning.”

 

            I believe that this section will take more than one SD to finish.  This is the third stage of spiritual growth and it is when believers do not merely understand doctrine intellectually, but have actually come to know, and this is from ginosko, in the Greek which means “to know by taking in knowledge; to come to know Him, speaking of God, who is the source of the truth and the object of the worship and praise it produces.  What John is doing is asserting that reality in both verses 13 and 14, and Paul echoes it in Philippians 3:10 which says “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”  The ones who are spiritual fathers have meditated (cf. Josh. 1:8; Pss. 1:2; 19:14; 49:3; 77:11-12; 139:17-18; 143:5) on the depts. of God’s character to such an extent that they gain a deep knowledge of God and worship Him intimately.  In thinking about meditation on the Word of God I have heard it described as something like a cow who sits down and chews her cud, in other words a cow will eat her food then sit down and bring that food up from a part of her stomach and chew it again and then it goes into another part of her stomach after chewing it again.  I think you can get the point.  MacArthur writes “In a sense, the most mature saints have come full circle, with the emphasis of their Christian lives again on their relationship with the eternal God who has been from the beginning (Pss. 90:2; 102:25-27; Rom. 1:20; Rev. 1:8; 16:5; 21:6; 22:13; cf. John 8:58).  Only now that relationship is markedly fuller and richer because it is completely informed by and anchored to the comprehensiveness of biblical doctrine.  Job, through his experience of severe trials, came to this deep knowledge of God.  He affirmed, ‘Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:6), and thereby actually repented of his incomplete, immature view of God held earlier in his life (cf. Job 36:3-4; Ps. 119:66; Prov. 1:7; 2:10; 9:10; Col. 1:9-10; 2 Peter 1:3, 8).”

 

            Lord willing I will finish this section in my next SD.

 

10/23/2024 10:10 PM