PT-3 "Hope Is Secured by Abiding" (1 John 2:28)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/23/2024 10:11 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-3 “Hope Is Secured by Abiding”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  1 John 2:28

 

            Message of the verse:  “28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”

 

            Let me begin this SD by writing that I have been sick for the last week and that is why I have not done my Spiritual Diaries in the morning or in the evening.  Today I do feel a bit better and was able to do some of the things that I normally do each day.  Let me just tell you a story that seems to go along with what I am writing about here.  In the first church that I went to after becoming a believer, actually it was four years after becoming a believer that the Pastor that was preaching at that church stated something right before he was about to retire.  Pastor Ralph O. Burns was his name and he was a very good and faithful Pastor, perfect as far as I was concerned because I was a relatively now believer.  He and his wife were ready to move from Ohio to Florida and he said something that I never forgot.  He said that you have to retire from something to something and he had plans when he moved to Florida to attend a good church, and he also had plans to get a job at a grocery store packing people’s groceries.  He said that I could talk to people as I packed their groceries and perhaps tell them the gospel story.  He also said that he wanted to play golf.  I learned from what he did and so when I retired close to 25 years ago I kind of followed is similar things he did.  I did get some part time work, but the thing I was most interested in doing was to study the Word of God and to put what I learned onto blogs so others could learn from what I studied.  Well 25 years later I believe my working days as far as a job are over. I now have time to study the Word and in the summer play some golf and also teach a small Sunday school class.  The other thing that I am involved in is walking, which I began seriously on the 20^th of March in the year 2000.  I began this because I had a high sugar count and exercise was a good way to get it down.  I was hoping to complete 10,000 miles this month of December but this flu bug stopped that as well.  Ok that is enough of my story as to why I messed six days of doing my Spiritual Diaries. 

 

            Last SD on this verse I finished by quoting 1 John 2:23-25 and so I will begin this SD by quoting a paragraph from John MacArthur’s commentary.  “The Bible teaches the complementary truths that true Christians will persevere in their faith, and that God will keep them eternally secure.  Without question, the Lord securely holds on to His own as Jesus declared,

 

27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28  and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 “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 10:27-29; cf. Rom 8:38-39; 1 Cor. 1:8-9; Jude 24-25).

 

“But that wonderful reality does not absolve believers from the responsibility to persevere in their faith and abide in Christ (cf. Phil. 2:12-13; Jude 20-21.”

            I think that perhaps what MacArthur is writing about is that when a person becomes a born-again believer that that happened because God gave them what is called an effectual call, a call they cannot say no to.  Now that a person becomes a believer then it is time to do what Christ has called you to do for the cause of Christ.  Ephesians 2:8-10 helps me understand this truth.  “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Verses 8-9 tells us how a person is saved, and then verse 10 tells us what a person is to do once they are saved.  There are no works in order to be saved, but afterwards the believer is created in Christ Jesus for good works.  Then notice the rest of verse 10 which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” 

 

12/23/2024 10:43 PM