SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/6/2024 8:33 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Consider Your Resources”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 1:7
Message of the
verse: “For God has not given us a spirit
of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (NASB 95). “For God has not
given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”
(AKJV).
I want to continue to write about this verse, a
verse that has meet a lot to me in the past, and yet I am getting new insights
into it as I study it more thoroughly at this time.
God has given resources to us as seen in this verse where
we see He has given us power and love and discipline. MacArthur adds “When we are vacillating and
apprehensive, we can be sure it is because our focus is on ourselves and our
own human resources rather than on the Lord and His available divine resources.”
Now
we look again at the Greek word for power which is “dunamis” and I have stated
in earlier SD’s that we get the word dynamite from that word. This word denotes great force, or
energy. It also carries the connotation of
effective, productive energy, rather than that which is raw and unbridled. So we learn that God provides us with His power
in order for us to be effective in His service.
Paul did not pray that the believers in Ephesus might be given divine power but that they might
be aware of the divine power they already possessed. “18 I pray that
the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the
hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward
us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the
strength of His might 20 which He
brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His
right hand in the heavenly places”
(Eph. 1:18-20). Now it is through Christ
we have the resource of God’s own supernatural power, the very power He used to
raise Christ from the dead.
Now
when we think about both the Old and New Testaments we know that the OT saints
were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit in the same way that New Testament saints
are, that is not to the same degree of fullness. Let us look at John 14:15-17 “15 "If you
love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 “I will ask the Father, and He will
give you another Helper,
that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but
you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Now it is true that the OT saints did have
resource of God’s Spirit providing divine help as they lived and served
Him. They understood, as Zechariah
declared to Zerubbabel, that their strength was not by human ‘might nor… power,
but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord” (Zech 4:6).
Now
I sometimes think of what Dr. Warren Wiersbe stated in one of his books about
this subject as he wondered how much of a difference in the believer’s life if
the Holy Spirit’s power would be taken away from them. I think that what he may have been referring
to was that the believers in our country today need a Holy Spirit revival, something
that I have been praying for, for a very long time.
I
will conclude this SD with a quotation from MacArthur’s commentary. “It is of upmost importance to understand that
God does not provide His power for us to misappropriate for our own
purposes. He provides His power to
accomplish His purposes through us. When
our trust is only in Him, and our desire is only to serve Him, He is both
willing and “able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works within us” (Eph. 3:20).
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It is my desire that God through His Holy
Spirit give me the power to write my Spiritual Diaries in a way that will bring
glory to Him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire that the things that God has called
me to do will be done in His power and not in mine, for that would mean that if
done in my power they would not be done correctly. In the Spirit not in the flesh.
12/6/2024 12:12 PM
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