EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/5/2025 9:44 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Victory Over Sin”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 5:18
Message of the verse: “We know that no one is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.”
Now as I begin this Spiritual Diary I have to report
that this is exactly the verse that I need in my life this evening. I have to believe that everyone who is a
born-again believer in Jesus Christ struggles with sin in their lives from time
to time, and has victories much of the time.
As I listen to the Bible on my phone each day I have been lately listening
to the book of Romans, and chapters that I am mostly listening to are Romans
chapters 6-8, as I at one time I had those memorized, but that was a while
ago. You see what a believers needs to
keep is life pure is to have the Word of God in your heart, and that can only
be done by memorizing it so that when temptations come upon you that you can
then quote that verse either out loud or to yourself in order defeat those
temptations, that perhaps comes from the evil one or one of his demons. The Bible in the 119th Psalm says “They
Word have I hid in my heart that I may not sin against Thee.
John is winding down his letter as
we are now getting to the end of this great letter that John wrote, and has he
nears the end he reiterates a vitally important principle he repeated earlier in
this letter; now one who has been transformed by the new
birth goes on living in an unbroken pattern of sin. I would suppose that is a good indicator as
to whether or not one is a believer.
MacArthur writes “The unconverted can do nothing but sin. They are sinners from birth (Ps. 51:5), slaves to sin (John 8:34; Rom 6:16), defiant, rebellious haters of God (Pss. 5:10; Rom. 1:28-32; 5:10; 8p:7), and under the dominion of Satan (Eph. 2:2; cf. Acts 26:18; Col. 1:13). In short, they are ‘dead in [their] trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1).
“The one who is born of God, however, cannot live in
an unbroken pattern of sin, for several reasons. First, sin is incompatible with the law of
God (1 John 3:4). The redeemed love God’s
law (Ps. 119:97, 113, 163, 165) and cannot habitual live in violation of it
(cf. 1 John 2:3-4; 3:24; 5:3). Second,
sin is incompatible with the work of the Holy Spirit, who in the new birth
plants the principle of divine life in the redeemed (1 Peter 1:23; 1 John 3:9).” Now back on the first day of this year (2025)
I began looking at chapter eleven in MacArthur’s commentary, and at the end of
this section MacArthur writes (“For a complete discussion of believers’
incompatibility with sin, see chapter 11 of this volume.)”
When I was a young believer back in
the early 1970’s I have a friend who owned a Christian Book Store, and since I
did not get saved in a church, and since I got saved some 1200 miles from where
I lived, when I returned home the first thing that I looked for was a Christian
Book store, because that is where I went in Florida after the Lord saved
me. I bought a brand new “Living Bible”
from that store and finally because it was not leather bound Bible it wore
out. Many years after that there was a
man in our church whose mother had just passed away and she had one of those
very Bibles which he gave to me. It
brought back many great memories to me and I still have it on my book
shelf. While working at that book store
while my new friend had to leave a man came in and we got into a conversation
as to whether or not believers can quit sinning after a while of being a
believer. I did not agree with him, but
did not tell him that, but I showed him a couple of books which gave each
view. Well he did not buy either one of
them, but at least he looked at them for a little while. Yes there is a division as to whether or not
a believer can still sin after they become a true believer, and since all
believers still have the old nature in them (the flesh) they can sin, but as
mentioned hiding the Word of God in ones heart helps believers not to sin.
MacArthur writes in this
subject: “That they do not continually
live in sin does not mean that believers can reach a point in this life where
they never sin. In fact, John said that those who make such claims are liars
(1:8, 10). Further, his description of
Jesus as believers’ Advocate (2:1) assumes that they will continue to sin and
need His intercession. The point here is
the same as earlier, that a pattern of righteousness characterizes the
redeemed, whereas a pattern of unrighteousness characterizes the unredeemed.”
Lord will we will look at something
that Paul wrote from the very chapter in Romans that I am trying to memorize in
the next SD.
4/5/2025
10:16 PM
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