SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/21/2024 10:00 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-4
“Appreciation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 1:3a
Message of the verse: “I Thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did.”
I want to begin to talk about conscience and we can
read that Paul’s conscience was clear as he stood near the end of his
life. I have something on one of my
prayer lists that has to do with conscience and I write that it seems like I
always have a guilty conscience about something, but this certainly was not the
case for Paul. Paul knew that his guilt
was forgiven, and his devotion was undivided.
So after a careful self-examination Paul said in effect, “I can say with
sincerity that, although I am not perfect, I am living in holiness before the
Lord.” None of us are perfect even
though our standing before God is perfect because of what Christ did for us on
the cross and once we have accepted the free gift of salvation then our
standing before God is perfect because He looks at what Christ did for us and
as the Scripture says many times we are “in Christ.”
Paul wanted Timothy to have no doubt that he endured his
present physical afflictions, as he had countless others, because of his
unswerving faithfulness to the Lord, not as a consequence of unfaithful,
ungodly living.
MacArthur writes “Although even the most spiritual believer cannot know his own heart with complete certainty or understanding, it not only is possible but expected that, like Paul every Christian has a clear conscience. This was a vital matter to Paul, who often refers to his conscience. When defending himself against the lying attacks he experienced in Corinth, he responded with an appeal to the highest human court, the conscience. His defense was: “For our proud confidence is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerely, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you’ (2 Cor. 1:12; cf. Acts 23:1).”
The following is what Paul wrote to Timothy in his
first letter to him found in 1 Timothy 1:5 “But the
goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a
sincere faith.” Now we will combine that
with what he wrote in 1 Timothy 3:9 “but holding to the mystery of the
faith with a clear conscience.”
MacArthur then writes “In that same epistle he said that ‘the Spirit
explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying
attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the
hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron’
(4:1-2). To continually reject God’s
truth causes the conscience to become progressively less sensitive to sin, as
if covered with layers of unspiritual scar tissue. Paul’s conscience was very clear and very
sensitive, and he responded readily to its convicting voice.”
Now as we look at the word “forefathers,”
found in our verse we can see that Paul does not explain whom he meant by that
term, but obviously was speaking of godly men who had lived in former
times. Unlike Timothy Paul had no godly
heritage from his immediate family. Paul
had an impressive religious heritage,
but he utterly discounted that as so much rubbish as seen in Philippians
3:4-8. So it therefore seems more
probably that Paul was referring to the patriarchs, prophets, and other Old
Testament saints. Another thing he could
have been referring to was the other apostles and the many other godly
believers in the early church who preceded him in faith.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today:
Conscience, to me, is a difficult thing to fully understand, as
mentioned it seems my conscience is too sensitive at times. I have struggled with different issues every
since I was a small child, and wondered at times why the Lord did not take
those desires away from me when I became a believer over 50 years ago. He did take swearing away from me, and that
is how I knew that He had saved me. I
suppose that this was the best thing to take away from me and leave the other
issues so that I can depend upon the Lord to overcome them. It has always been a struggle, but I know that
as I grow in the Lord that and do the things that He has called me to do that the
enemy of my soul will tempt me with the problems that I have had since being a
small child.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: You know
that these smart phones can really work good in many ways. I have a prayer list I use most every day and
so I took my phone and recorded that list on my phone. Now I can play that list and listen to it so
I don’t have to read it. Now for my step
of faith for today I am going to read two different sets of verses and put them
on my phone so in my time of need can just listen to them.
11/21/2024
10:46 AM
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