SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/26/2024 9:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Trust Your Security”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy
1:12b
Message of the verse: “but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.”
Paul tells Timothy that he is convinced that He
[God] is able, and that word in the Greek is [Dunatos, lit., is powerful enough] to guard what I have entrusted
to Him. MacArthur writes “Phulasso (to guard) was a military term
used of a solder to watch, who was accountable with his own life to protect
that which was entrusted to his care. He
was convinced not only by divine promises but also by God’s constant
faithfulness, already exhibited to him in such measure that he could testify
from personal encounters and experience.
He asked rhetorically,
35 Who will separate us from the love of
Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written, "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING
PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED."
37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height,
nor depth, nor any other
created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:35-39).
I
have to say that this is a wonderful promise that comes from the pen of Paul,
which was inspired by the Holy Spirit to be a blessed portion of
Scripture. It can be seen by these
verses that Paul trusted his absolute security in God. Paul had seen what the Lord said through
Ananias that he would have to suffer much for the cause of Christ and as we
come to his writing to Timothy most of that suffering was behind him with the
exception of prison he was living in and also in the end he would be killed for
the cause of Christ. Beginning in verse
38 of Romans chapter eight Paul gives a list of things that will not separate
him from the love of Christ, ending with the highlighted portion nor any other created thing. In other words there is nothing that can
separate us from the love of God and that is certainly a wonderful promise.
What
God told Ananias certainly came true as Paul suffered much for the cause of
Christ as He had been through years of relentless temptations, trials and
testings, opportunities and hardships.
Paul had seen the Lord save and heal and protect and guide and encourage
(cf. 2 Tim. 4:14-18). Paul had
encountered Christ personally on the Damascus Road and he had even been “caught
up into Paradise, and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted
to speak…And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this
reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the
flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me—to keep me from exalting myself!” (2
Cor. 12:4, 7).
John
MacArthur writes “His confidence did not come from a creed or a theological
system or a denomination or an ordination.
It came solely from a close, unbroken relationship with God, to whom he
unreservedly gave his life, going about his divine mission with no concern for
his own welfare, safety, or life.
Without the least reservation, all of those things were entrusted to Him
until that day. His only ‘ambition, whether at home of absent
[was] to be pleasing to Him’ (2 Cor. 5:9).”
The highlighted words seen above are described
later in the letter where he writes “In
the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also
to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8). Now it is the day when believers will stand
before the bema, “the Judgment seat
of God’ (Rom. 14:10), where each man’s work will become evident; for the day
will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will
test the quality of each man’s work’ (1 Cor. 3:13) in order “that each one may
be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done,
whether good or bad” (2 Cor.5:10).
MacArthur concludes this section: “Like Peter, Paul knew with perfect certainty
that he was ‘protected by the power of God through faith for a [completed]
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’ (1 Peter 1:5). He had utter confidence in Jesus’ promise regarding
His sheep: ‘I give eternal life to them,
and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My had. My Father, who has given them to Me, is
greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand’
(John 10:28-29). When our life belongs
to Jesus Christ, nothing in this world, not even all the demons in hell or
Satan himself, can touch us!”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: One thing I don’t see in this section is the
mention of the word fear. When I trust
the Lord for every aspect of my life then my life is absence of fear. Now to fear the Lord means to fear nothing in
this world.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Trust in the Lord for every aspect of my life
will cause fear to disappear. I suppose
that fear has been a big problem for me most of my life as it began early with
my fear of going to school. Lord may the
only fear that I ever will have is the fear of the Lord.
12/26/2024 9:57 AM
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