PT-1 "The Soldier" (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/11/2025 12:02 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                  Focus: PT-1 “The Soldier”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  2 Timothy 2:3-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “3 Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.”

 

            First of all I only want to do a short introduction on these two verses, but before I do that I want to talk about suffering for the cause of Christ as it seems that this subject has come up recently and will continue to come up as we move through this section of 2 Timothy.

 

            Sometimes as I read from the Scriptures in different places that it seems that some of these men and women in the Bible who have suffered seem to be looking forward to suffer for the cause of Christ.  I know that that is not the case but when they begin to suffer for the cause of Christ they do not turn and run from it.  In the fifth chapter of Acts the disciples were beaten and told not to talk about Christ again.  41 So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. 42  And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:41-42).

 

            What is the reason that people suffer for the cause of Christ?  Well I think the main reason is that the people who are causing believers to suffer really want to put the suffering onto Jesus Christ but He is in heaven, but the truth is that when a person is suffering for the cause of Christ Jesus too is a part of that suffering.  Let us look for a moment at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.  3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" 5 And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6  but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do’” (Acts 9:3-6).  Notice the highlighted portions of these verses.  Now let us move a little further along in this ninth chapter of Acts.  15  But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.’”  I realize that I have been looking at this portion of Scripture wrongly for a long time as my thoughts were that because Paul was persecuting believers that now the Lord was going to cause him to suffer for the cause of Christ.  I know that is wrong as Paul was called by the Lord to be the missionary to the Gentiles and part of that ministry would be suffering for the cause of Christ which would bring glory to the Lord.

 

            I realize that I am not going to totally understand suffering as it is seen in the Bible but I believe that the Lord has my attention to continue to study about it and as I go through this section in 2 Timothy my prayer is that the Lord will open my eyes to better understand more about it as the first word that Paul writes to Timothy in 2:3 is Suffer.

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I trust that the Lord will open my eyes to teach me more about suffering for the cause of Christ.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord with my life that I will do what He has called me to do for the cause of Christ.

 

1/11/2025 12:31 PM

PT-3 "Sin Is Incompatible With the Work of Christ" (1 John 3:5-8)

 

Evening Spiritual Diary for 1/10/2025 9:37 PM

 

My Worship Time                            Focus:  PT-3 “Sin Is Incompatible With the Work of Christ”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                        Reference:  1 John 3:5-8

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

 

 

            I mentioned that I thought that this section of 1 John is very important for us to understand do to the highlighted portion found in verse six “No one who abides in Him sins.”  This is why I am going to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary to make sure that we can best understand this section from 1 John.

 

            “Thus John taught that no one who sins (the present tense of the verb again denotes the habitual action of defiance and rebellion by a fallen heart) can also abide in Christ.  It is not that people who become Christians will never sin again (1:8), but they will not live as they did, because no one who sins constantly or habitually in the pattern of the unregenerate has seen Him or knows Him.”  Let me quote 1 John 1:8 before I go on quoting from MacArthur’s commentary “8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  I just want to make sure that we all understand this section of Scripture.

 

            “John further cautioned his readers that they should make sure no one deceive [d] them concerning a correct understanding of sanctification.  Despite any deceptive teaching to the contrary, only the one who practices righteousness can have any assurance that he is righteous, just as He is righteous.

 

            “The Lord Jesus came to earth to take away the sins of all who trust in Him, thus placing them on the path of sanctification.  In contrast, the one who practices sin is of the devil.  Diabolos (devil) means ‘accuser’ or ‘slanderer.’

 

            “The expression the devil has sinned from the beginning likely refers to the moment of Satan’s rebellion against God (cf. Luke 10:18), because God originally created him as a perfect angelic being (Isa. 14:12-14; Ezek. 28:12-17).  Satan is the prototypical rebel, the leading antagonist against God, and the ruler of this sinful world system (Eph. 2:2).  Because he opposed God and His plan (Gen. 3:1-14; cf. Zech 3:1; Matt. 4:1-11; 13:19; 1 Thess. 2:18) and instigated the original rebellion against God’s law, all unsaved sinners are in a sense the Devil’s children (cf. John 8:44; 2 Cor. 4:3-4; Eph. 2:1-3).

 

            “John makes the obvious conclusion that because the Son of God appeared…to destroy the works of the devil (Gen. 3:15; cf. John 12:31; Heb. 2:14), it is impossible and unthinkable that true believers would continue in devil-like behavior.  Today Satan is still opposing the plans and people of God (1 Peter 5:8), but believers are no longer his children or under his rule, nor are they bound to do his works.

 

            “The phrase the works of the devil encompasses various satanic activities such as instigating sin and rebellion, tempting believers, inspiring unbiblical ideologies and false religions, persecuting and accusing believers, instigating the work of false teachers, and wielding the power of death (e.g., Luke 8:12; John 8:44; Acts 5:3; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 4:4; 10:3-5; Eph. 6:11-12; 1 Thess. 2:18; Heb. 2:14; Rev.12:10).  None of those works can ultimately defeat the saints, who have been delivered from his Kingdom (Col. 1:13).”

 

            I have to believe that this SD is one of the most important ones I have written in a while.

 

1/10/2025 9:59 PM

PT-7 "The Teacher" (2 Timothy 2:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/10/2025 9:57 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-7 “The Teacher”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 2:2

 

            Message of the verse:  “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

 

            This is the seventh SD that we have been talking about teachers, and teachers are very important when it comes to the Word of God.  Let us take a trip back in time, even before the OT was written, and that means before Moses began to write the OT.  We can see that God always had a witness to tell others what He was going to do, to tell people how they can have a relationship with Him.  This happened right from the beginning when Adam and Eve sinned and it went all the way through the time before the flood as Noah was a person of God who told the people what was going to happen, and to repent and come to know the Lord, but no one listened.  God destroyed the world through the flood with only eight people left to begin to repopulate the earth.  Next we see the call of Abram who would later be named Abraham and so he would begin the people of Israel and from there God had a witness to tell others about their need for a Savior.  Moses wrote about this in Exodus 19:6 “and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.’”  It was not just the priests and prophets, but all the people, were “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2).  MacArthur writes about this as he states “They were to be a nation of God’s intermediaries and witnesses to the pagan, Gentile world.  Centuries before Christ gave the Great Commission to His disciples to ‘go therefore and make disciples of all the nations’ (Matt. 28:19), God had given a similar commission to His chosen people Israel.  Sadly, it was a commission they had failed to heed and fulfill, and by the time of our Lord, the leadership of Israel was apostate and satanic (cf. John 8:44).”  “"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

 

            Now remember the story that MacArthur gave about the relay race that he ran where the third person in the race just stopped running because he did not feel like running, well he now writes “The third lap in the relay is for spiritually mature leaders, or faithful men, who themselves have been carefully trained, to teach others who show promise.  This is just the start of the continuous process of spiritual reproduction, of being taught and of teaching, that is to continue until our Lord returns.”

 

            What about just normal everyday true believers, what is their job to do?  Well a similar process should involve all believers, that is just normal everyday true believers, as all believers have particular spiritual gifts to be used for the cause of Christ.  Now in the church that I go to, because it is a Baptist church, and ours has been around since before the civil war,  we have deacons and other types of church they could be called elders, but these deacons or elders “who work hard at preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17).  Now to explain in our Baptist church there are some of the deacons who are either former Pastors or are Pastors at this time and they do preach and teach at certain times.  Some of them teach Sunday school classes but all are active in what is going on in the church.  In my Sunday school class I have a deacon who begins our class by reading one of the devotions that I copy that come from a book by John MacArthur, and then he will take prayer requests and pray for those requests.  In our class is also a couple of retired Pastors, one who worked for Baptist Mid Missions, and one who was the president of that organization.  It is a very small class but with talented people in the class.  In our church we have parents who help out in Sunday school classes for younger people and also for the youth, those up to eighteen years old.  We have parents and others who help out in the nursery, and even my 18 year old grandson works there once a month along with my daughter and he husband.  MacArthur writes “Every Christian has such a responsibility for any brother or sister in Christ whom he has opportunity to disciple even briefly.”

 

            He concludes this rather long section by writing “In a still wider sense, every believer has a responsibility to teach God’s truth to any other believer, even one who is older and more mature in the faith. Pastors can learn from othe church members, parents can learn from their children, teachers can learn from their students, wives can learn from their husbands, husbands can learn from their wives, and friends can learn from friends.”

 

            I think to sum this up it is important that every true born-again believer be ready to tell others the truth of the Gospel and be ready to at least help them to grow in their faith so that one day they can do the very same thing and that is how it has been especially throughout the church age.

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  One of the reasons that I write Spiritual Diaries and put them onto my blogs and also onto my FB story is to fulfill what the Lord said to His disciples in Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”  I can only put what I learn onto my blogs and make sure that what I write is true, and the leave it up to the Holy Spirit of God to use it in the way that He desires to use it.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Each day after posting my Spiritual Diaries I has the Lord to bless what I have written and be blessed by what I have written, and then there are some five prayer request that I have after that.

1.     I ask that the Holy Spirit use what I have written to open the eyes of some who read the Spiritual Diaries to those whom He has called and Jesus died for.

2.     I ask that the Holy Spirit cause believers to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3.     I ask that the Holy Spirit will bring revival to myself and to those who read these Spiritual Diaries.

4.     I ask that the Holy Spirit will continue to send these Spiritual Diaries around the world.

5.     I then ask that if is in the will of the Lord that the very last person in the Church age after reading one of these Spiritual Diaries to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior so that the rapture will take place.

 

1/10/2025 10:44 AM    

 

PT-2 "Sin is Incompatible With the Word of Christ" (1 John 3:5-8)

 

Evening Spiritual Diary for 1/9/2025 10:06 PM

 

My Worship Time                            Focus:  PT-2 “Sin Is Incompatible With the Work of Christ”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                        Reference:  1 John 3:5-8

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

 

            It is true that Christ came to destroy sin, but that is not just a future hope, but also a present reality, and that is wonderful news.  MacArthur writes that “John is not saying merely that believers will be delivered from sin when they die, and in the meantime will be as sinful as they were before their conversion.  At salvation believers experience a real cleansing of a separation from their sins (cf. Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5; Heb. 10:22), which on a practical level continues to occur as they become more and more conformed to the image of Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Thess. 4:1; 2 Peter 1:5-11).  Titus 2:11-14 summarizes well the present and eschatological aspects of sanctification:

 

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12  instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14  who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.(cf. Eph. 2:10; 1 Peter 2:24).” 

Let us look at those two verses now:  “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

“And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”

 

            Let us now look at how John concludes verse five with the phrase in Him there is no sin.  Now here is something that I spoke of yesterday as being difficult to understand and so I think that it is best that I quote from John MacArthur’s commentary.  “Jesus Christ is the absolutely sinless One (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 Peter 1:19), a truth that has immense practical ramifications.  ‘If you know that He is righteous,’ John wrote earlier in this epistle, ‘you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him’ (2:29).  In 3:6 the apostle reiterates the principle that no one savingly connected to Jesus Christ can continue to live in sin:  No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.  Years earlier Paul taught the same truth to the Roman believers,   

 

“4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.” (cf. vv. 20-22)

 

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

 

“Again, that outlines key provisions of the new covenant, which Paul further elaborates:  ‘But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:17-18).  The emphasis of the apostle’s statements is on sanctification, with true Christians having the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:12-17), receiving a new heart (acts 16:14; cf. Ezek. 36:26; Heb 10:16-17), complete forgiveness (Col 1:14), and a transformed life (Col. 3:5-10)—all evidenced in their new ability to obey the law of God.”

 

            There is more to answering the question as to what John is writing about when he writes  No one who abides in Him sins, and I hope to finish this part in the next SD, and continue answering this question as I believe it is very important for us to understand it’s answer.

 

1/9/2025 10:34 PM

PT-6 "The Teacher" (2 Tim. 2:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/9/2025 9:22 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-6 “The Teacher”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 2:2

 

            Message of the verse:  “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

 

            We have been talking about the role of a teacher for some time now and I suppose that we will be for at least a couple of more days as the role of a teacher, one who teaches the Word of God is a very important role and in this letter to 2^nd Timothy Paul is challenging Timothy to get back to doing the things that God has called him to do including teaching. 

 

            Like Timothy, every preacher and teacher is to guard the purity and the integrity of God’s Word.  In the spirit of this first sentence I saw a post on FB this morning from a well know Pastor in our area who said something like when people who read the Bible and throw out the things that they don’t like in the Bible they are making the Bible say what they want it to say.  Like Timothy we too are to guard the purity and the integrity of God’s Word and do nothing to change it to fit what we want it to say.  That would be very foolish indeed.  I have to say that when I began writing my blogs a long time ago that I named both blogs 2 Timothy 2:15 and the reason was that I did not want to say anything that was untrue when it came to the Word of God and that is why I have to study it to read it, to think about it, to listen to it in order to know it and thus not put anything that is not true about the Word of God on the blogs that I write.  One may wonder why I have two blogs name 2 Timothy 2:15, and the reason is that when I started my blog that I accidently began two blogs and so since I had wrote many Spiritual Diaries before I began my blogs that I decided to put the older Spiritual Diaries onto the second blog, so perhaps this was exactly what the Lord wanted me to do all along.

 

            Now back to 2 Timothy and MacArthur writes that “Some of those also are called to accurately and fully teach other godly leaders in the church.  As already mentioned, if the church is weak, it is because its leaders are weak.  Conversely, if the church is to be strong, its leaders must be strong.  And leaders can become strong only if they are carefully built up in the Word of God.  We all received the truth from faithful men before us, and we are to preserve it so that it is passed on accurately and fully to the next generation (cf. 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:14).”

 

            MacArthur goes on to write about something that I know is near and dear to his heart and that is Bible schools.  I will quote one more paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary in a moment but first I want to talk about how the colleges in our nation have turned from teaching the Bible to teaching against the Bible.  In the early years of our country what we call the ivy league schools, like Harvard and Pristine were begun to teach the Word of God, but it seems that Satan was allowed to get into the teaching of these schools and they gradually began to turn away from the Word of God.  I remember listening to a sermon by John MacArthur a few weeks ago as he was talking about a famous seminary in our country that he refused to name and how it too was beginning to turn away from the accurate teaching of the Word of God.  I can say that the church that I attend began before the civil war in our country and although it has been at different locations it has stood firm on the Word of God and what the Word of God teaches.  I am thankful for that for the last church that I attended for 32 years called a Pastor that certainly was not the kind of Pastor I wanted to sit under and so my wife and I left and came to the church we are now attending.

 

            MacArthur writes “It is for that primary purpose that Bible schools, Christian colleges, and seminaries are founded and that books and commentaries are written—to prepare dedicated Christian men and women for effective service to the church and in the world.  And within that broader purpose is the narrower one of giving special attention to raising up new generations of mature spiritual leaders who are uniquely trained and assigned to carefully guard and faithfully articulate God’s truth.”

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To make sure that I always when I am studying the Word of God to “Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to guide me to do the things that He has called me to do, and do them faithfully.

 

1/9/2025 9:52 AM  

 

PT-1 "Sin Is Incompatible With the Word of Christ" (1 John 3:5-8)

 

Evening Spiritual Diary for 1/8/2025 10:48 PM

 

My Worship Time                            Focus:  PT-1 “Sin Is Incompatible With the Work of Christ”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                        Reference:  1 John 3:5-8

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

 

            This section is difficult to understand as an example notice the highlighted part of verse six, and that is the most difficult part of this section that I will do my best to make sure we all understand it.

 

            Jesus’ primary reason for come to earth was in order to take away sins.  Therefore with this truth known it is absolutely inconsistent with Jesus Christ’s redeeming work on the cross for anyone who claims to be a Christian (one who shares the very life of Christ) to continue in sin.  Now to do so utterly ignores the reality of the sanctifying element of salvation, whereby believers are set apart from sin to righteousness.  Now I have written earlier that there are three stages of sanctification.  The first part is when a person becomes a new believer he is set apart to the Lord Jesus Christ to do what He desires for him to do.  Next as believers grow up in the Lord they are being sanctified more and more as they grow up in the Lord.  Thirdly when the rapture of the church happens an believers in the church age go to be with the Lord they will be totally and fully sanctified. 

 

            MacArthur explains “John reminds his readers that they know ( a form of the verb oida), not by mere information by the confidence of personal perception, that He appeared. John used a form of the very phaneroo, which in the New Testament often indicates either Christ’s first or second coming (e.g., Col. 3:4; Heb. 9:26; 1 Peter 5:4), to refer to the indisputable fact that the Lord had come.  He came not only to pay the penalty for sin and provide forgiveness (the doctrines of propitiation and justification [Rom 3:25; 4:25; 5:9, 18; Heb. 2:17 1 John 4:14]).  As a result of Christ’s substituionary atonement on the cross, believers have been set apart from sin unto holiness (cf. Eph. 1:3-4).  Te lawlessness that once characterized their lives has been removed.  Because Christ died to sanctify (i. e., make holy) the believer (2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 5:25-27), to live sinfully is contrary to His work of breaking the dominion of sin in the believer’s life (Rom. 6:1-15).”

 

            I want at this time to look at those verses from the book of Romans to close this first SD on these verses, as I will take my time getting through them so that we can all understand what John is teaching us in these verses.

 

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6  knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7  for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!   

 

            Please take your time to read over these verses as they will help you understand what we have just looked at and what we will be looking at in the next SD on the verses from 1 John.

 

1/8/2025 11:14 PM

PT-5 "The Teacher" (2 Tim. 2:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/8/2025 9:38 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-5 “The Teacher”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 2:2

 

            Message of the verse:  “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

 

            John MacArthur has much to say about teachers and I suppose that because that is what he is and has been for many years that this is why he has a lot to say about teachers.   Teachers are very important to the Church and have been for a long time, and will continue to be until the Lord comes to take His bride to heaven to live with Him.

 

            In the last SD there was a story that MacArthur tells about his college days when he ran track and tells of how the third person in the relay just stopped because he did not feel like running any longer.  He was ridiculed by his teammates and also by his coach for not doing what he was trained to do.  Ok MacArthur doesn’t tell a story without a spiritual meaning like most Pastors and teachers do, and so he brings this story into his teaching as he says “Timothy’s assignment was to run the second lap, as it were, of this spiritual relay, in which he as to entrust the things he had been taught by Paul—that is, pass on the in-depth teaching of God’s Word—to faithful men under his care.  That which he was to carefully guard (1:14; cf. 1 Tim. 6:20) he also was to carefully teach.”

 

            What truths was Timothy to teach, and I can say that it was not just the basic gospel message of salvation, which is to be preached to all who will hear. Telling other about what Christ did for them on the cross is the job of everyone who is a believer.  Paul is talking about the careful, systematic training of church leaders who will teach and disciple other believers in the fulness of God’s Word.  MacArthur writes that “This particular ministry is to be selective.  It is reserved for faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. He is directing Timothy to invest in the lives of spiritually devout men who are gifted to teach potential pastors and evangelists.  Such men must already have proved their love for the Lord and their giftedness in His service.  They must be prequalified by proven spiritual character and ability, as well as by fruitful labor. 

 

            “Pistos (faithful) is used later in the chapter of the trustworthiness of God’s promise that ‘if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him’ (v-11), and a few verses later of Christ Himself, who, even ‘if we are faithless,…remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself’ (v. 13).  In other words, this special entrustment is reserved for men whose character reflects the faithfulness of God’s own Word and of God’s own Son.  In this context, faithful not only refers to spiritual character but to spiritual giftedness.  God does not call every believer to be a teacher ad a teacher of teachers.  Paul knew Timothy had such giftedness (see. 1:6) and here instructs him to find others who were so gifted and to teach them.”

 

            I have listened to many hundreds of John MacArthur’s sermons and have read many of his commentaries which helps me in writing my Spiritual Diaries and his ministry at the church he is preaching at began a long time ago, not sure but over fifty years ago.  The church that he is still preaching at “Grace Community Church” had around 500 people attending when he first got there.  Let me just say it grew, and grew very fast.  One of the things that happened was a school was begun and that school is doing things just like mentioned in this last paragraph I quoted from MacArthur.  His desire is to teach others so that they can then go out and teach and preach and this is successful because it follows the plans that God has put in place.  I mentioned that Jesus told His disciples that it was important for Him to go away, and the reason was that after He went back to heaven that the Church was born and that started the cycle of teaching, of preaching, and of gifts to be given to those that the Lord wanted to carry on the teachings of the Church.  It is still going on today and will continue to go on until my favorite event of Bible teaching will happen, that is the rapture of the Church when all who have believed in Christ for salvation will be caught up in the clouds of heaven where Christ will call them and then go to heaven with Him to live with Him forever.  I have always desired to be one of those who are alive when the rapture takes place, and am still holding out along with my family.

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The church that I go to has some rules that I do not actually agree with, and yet it is the church that the Lord has brought us to.  The rule about not being a church deacon of leader in the church if you have been divorced, which I was well over fifty years ago before I became a believer.  I am still able to teach a Sunday school class which I have been doing for around nine years.  All I can do is do what I believe the Lord desires me to do and I am thankful to be able to teach this very small class and to write my Spiritual Diaries that the Holy Spirit of God is sending around the world each and every day, to which I am amazed and thankful for.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to continue to give me grace to do the things that He has planned for me to do in eternity past, so that He will receive the glory.

 

1/8/2025 10:13 AM

PT-2 "Sin Is Incompatible with the Law of God" (1 John 3:4)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/7/2025 11:17 PM

 

My Worship Time                                  Focus:  PT-2 “Sin Is Incompatible with the Law of God”

           

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                           Reference:  1 John 3:4

 

            Message of the verse:  “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

 

            I want to pick up where I left off in yesterdays evening SD.  We are talking about sin that happens to believers but as the title of this section is called that “Sin in Incompatible with the Law of God.”  “It is clear, then that believers will not habitually violate the law of God,” writes John MacArthur.  “Whereas they formerly allowed lawlessness to dominate their lives, they now love God and desire to submit to Him.  Obedience to the Word becomes precious to them, as it was to David:

 

            “7 The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. 10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward” (Psalm 19:7-11). 

 

             I have to say that this section was shorter than what I thought it would be and so what I am going to do is to give a preview of what we will be looking at in the next Evening SD.

 

The name of that section is “Sin Is Incompatible With The Work of Christ” and it covers verses three-eight which I will now quote and then we will begin to look at them in the next SD.

 

“5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8  the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:5-8).

 

1/7/2025 11:31 PM

 

PT-4 "The Teacher" (2 Tim. 2:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/7/2025 10:35 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-4 “The Teacher”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 2:2

 

            Message of the verse:  “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

 

            Yester we ended up talking about church leaders who have just dropped out of the Lord’s service, some were just like the runner that MacArthur wrote about in his commentary.

 

            Timothy had not yet reached that point of defection, however it is clear that Paul knew his young friend, who was his son in the faith, was being tempted in that direction.  Before such a serious crisis occurred, therefore, Paul was saying something like “Don’t even consider dropping out or even curtailing you work to suit your own desires.  The truth is that this isn’t even your ministry but the Lord’s, and you have no right to quit or to slack until He “takes you out of the game,” as it were, either by death or by the rapture.  I cannot let you become a broke link in God’s chain of faithful witnesses.  You not only have to keep going yourself but you have to help others get going and keep going as well.”  This section was pretty much what MacArthur wrote as I just put some of my own words in it.

 

            MacArthur now combines the relay race he mentioned earlier with the spiritual race:  “The first stage in the spiritual ‘relay’ was the truth being handed from Paul to Timothy, which the apostles describes here as Timothy’s careful receiving and studying  the things which he had heard from Paul over the period of several years traveling with the apostle and of ministering with him in Ephesus.

 

            Let us talk a minute about in the presence of many witnesses, as this carries the fuller idea of “supported by confirming testimony of other teachers” and this includes the teaching of other apostles.  Peter writes in his second letter which was written about the same time as 2 Timothy He attested that Paul authoritatively preached God’s Word.  (See 2 Peter 3:14-16).  Those witnesses certainly would have included Paul’s fellow preachers and also teachers, such as Barnabas and Silas.  Luke is another one that can be added to these other friend and fellow workers for the Lord that helped Paul on many of his trips, also would have been qualified to confirm to Timothy the divine authenticity of Paul’s teaching.  Now from the time he first met and began accompanying Paul (Acts 16:1-3), Timothy exposed to the public teaching and private counsel of many godly witnesses in addition to Paul.

 

            MacArthur writes “Paratithemi (entrust) is here an imperative and carries the idea of depositing something valuable for safekeeping.  It is a verb form of the noun (paratheke), used twice in the previous chapter, referring to the treasure Paul had entrusted to the Lord (1:2) and that Paul had entrusted to Timothy (v. 14)—namely, the treasure ‘of sound words which you have heard from me’ (v. 13).  Now it was time for the treasure with which Timothy had been entrusted to be entrusted by him to others.”

1/7/2025 10:19 AM   

PT-1 "Sin Is Incompatible with the Law of God" (1 John 3:4)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/6/2025 8:24 PM

 

My Worship Time                                  Focus:  PT-1 “Sin Is Incompatible with the Law of God”

           

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                           Reference:  1 John 3:4

 

            Message of the verse:  “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

 

            I begin by looking at the two primary biblical definitions of sin and the first one means “missing the mark” (hamartia), and the second means “without righteousness” (adikia). MacArthur adds “Integral to both definitions is that sin is a transgression of God’s law.  In this verse John explicitly equates sin with an attitude of lawlessness and rebelliousness against God (Rom. 8:7; cf. John 3:20; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21)  John no doubt learned this principle years earlier, during the Lord’s earthly ministry, when Christ condemned the self-righteous theology of the Pharisees:

 

21 "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

 

            Notice the highlighted part of the first paragraph after the verse and we can see that sin is a transgression of God’s law.  I have been thinking about the law of God for a few days after listening to MacArthur’s sermon on this section of verses and one of the things that I was thinking about was the part of the Law that has been repeated in the New Testament and the part that is not repeated.  The dietary parts of the law are not repeated in the New Testament and one of the Ten Commandments is not repeated, the one about keeping the Sabbath, so that means that nine of the Ten Commandments are a part of the New Testament, meaning we are to follow them, but not in order to cause us to be saved, that comes from the Spirit of God opening our hearts to realize that Jesus Christ paid for you sins and then we are to confess our sins to the Lord and ask Him to come into your heart, and He will in the person of the Holy Spirit and you will be saved.  In order to know that you are saved you will begin to keep these laws that are found in the New Testament as you desire to do them because you are saved and in order to receive salvation.  Jesus stated that the two greatest commandments were to Love the Lord Your God and to love your neighbors.  I have always thought that if one looks at the cross and the two posts that make it up the vertical piece speaks of loving God and the horizontal piece speaks of loving your neighbors. 

 

            MacArthur writes “John’s description allows for no exceptions or dual standards.  Everyone who habitually practices sin is living in an ongoing condition of lawlessness (James 2:10-11; cf. Rom. 4:15), which marks all who are outside the kingdom of God (cf. Rom. 1:32; Gal. 5:19-21; Rev. 21:8).”

 

            Now as we think about this verse we can see that believers, however, are not any longer marked by lawlessness.  They have obeyed Jesus’ command that “if anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).  MacArthur goes on to write “The truly penitent heart resolves to obey God’s law (1 Thess. 2:13), deny fleshly lusts (Rom 13:14; 2 Tim. 2:22; 1 Peter 1:14), resist the world’s allurements (Titus 2:12), and willingly submit to the sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ in all things (cf. Luke 6:46).  Those whom God has savingly transformed have traded slavery to sin for slavery to God, as Paul wrote,  

 

“16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:16-18; cf. 8:12-14).”

 

            Lord willing we will pick up more from this section in the next SD.

 

1/6/2025 9:13 PM  

PT3 "The Teacher" (2 Tim. 2:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/6/2025 10:35 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-3 “The Teacher”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 2:2

 

            Message of the verse:  “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

 

            I continue to look at this verse in today’s SD.  The job of every believer to pass the good news of the Gospel on to others, and so we see that the apostles, some for only a brief time before they were martyred, did proclaim the gospel they had received from Christ to other faithful men—prophets, elders, deacons, and many others—among whom was Timothy.  So that means that it was Timothy’s turn to entrust the gospel, and all other divinely revealed truths that he had learned to others. 

 

            John MacArthur tells a story in his commentary that he also mentioned in his sermon on this subject of teachers.  “In a state invitational track meet during my college years, I represented my team as the second man in the mile relay.  The first man ran a fast first leg, and I did well on the second.  But soon after I passed the baton to the third man, one of our best runners, he stopped, walked onto the infield and sat down.  Our first horrified thought was that he had pulled a hamstring or twisted an ankle.  I ran across the field and asked, ‘What happened?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘I just didn’t feel like running anymore.’  Understandably, his teammates, the coach and everyone else from our college were sickened and disgusted.  ‘How could you do that?’ we asked.  ‘Don’t you know you’re not just representing yourself, but your team and your school?  Have you forgotten all the time the coach has invested in you and that your teammates have invested to get where we are?  How could you, in one brief, selfish second, destroy all of that?”

 

            Now you know that there is a deeper point that MacArthur brings out of this story and it is infinitely on a more important level.  There have been countless leaders in the church who have simply dropped out of the Lord’s service, some with no better reason that what this college runner did by just not feeling like he wanted to run the race.  The race of the Christian life is the most important race anyone can run in and if one looks back at the cross a place where all of our sins were paid for, where for three hours our Lord Jesus Christ was separated from His Father who took all of the punishment due us at that time for us so that we can one day enter into heaven.  A long time ago when I was teaching a group Bible study to new believers we were talking about what happens at the judgment seat of Christ, the Bema seat where all of the saved saints of the church will attend to receive rewards.  The passage speaks of those whose robs will smell of smoke as they were still saved but did little or nothing for the cause of Christ.  We came up with the saying that we did not want to have “smokey robs” at the judgment seat of Christ. 

 

            I have written about Ephesians 2:10 in many of my Spiritual Diaries stating that my belief is that before time began that God had set us apart for good works, by giving us certain spiritual gifts which will be used by us to serve Christ while in our earthly bodies.  It is very important to find out what our gifts are, and the Lord will show us, and that we then use those gifts that He has given us for the cause of Christ.  Jesus said to His disciples that it was important that He go away, and the reason was that the Holy Spirit would come to empower believers and thus there will be many believers doing what they were called to do for the cause of Christ.  Timothy was certainly one of them and Paul is writing this letter to him to encourage him to get back into the race and keep running for the cause of Christ.

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To remember that God has not given me a spirit of fear but of love and a sound mind.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  “Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

 

1/6/2025 11:02 AM