EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/6/2025 8:38 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “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.”
I promised to look at a quote from
MacArthur’s commentary which will give us a quote from Romans 6:17-22.
“Paul reminded the Romans that since
sin’s power over them has been broken, it cannot characterize their lives.
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. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of
your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to
lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your
members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 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.
“The unredeemed are ‘slaves to sin,’ but
the redeemed are ‘obedient from the heart’ to God’s law, and thus ‘having been
freed from sin, [they are] slaves of righteousness.’ While the inevitable outcome for those who
live in sin is spiritual death (Rom. 6:23), those who have ‘been freed from sin
and enslaved to God’ gain ‘eternal life’ (v. 22).
Now if you have not thought about this then take the
time to go over this and reread it so that you can understand it. Read over these very important verses and ask
the Lord to help you understand them through the power of His Holy Spirit.
MacArthur
goes on to write that “A believer can never fall back into a pattern of
unbroken sin because He who was born of God keeps him. This second reference to one born of God is
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God (John 1:14; 3:16, 18; Heb. 1:5; 5:5;
1 John 4:9). As the Good Shepherd, Jesus
protects His flock so that the evil one (Satan) does not so much as touch (lay
hold of or fasten his grip on) them.
They are no longer under his control, having been ‘rescued…from the domain
of darkness’ (Col. 1:13; cf. Acts 26:18; 2 Tim. 2:26; Heb. 2:14-15). Satan can tempt and harass the saints, as he
did Job (Job 1-2) and Peter (Luke 22:31), but he can never reclaim them. Jesus will not fail to keep the redeemed
(John 10:28; 2 Tim. 1:12; Jude 24-25), who have been given to Him by the Father
(John 6:37, 39; 17:2, 6, 9, 24). Christ
is the ‘anchor of the soul’ for believers, providing them with ‘ a hope both
sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has
entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according
to the order of Melchizedek’ (Heb. 6:19-20).”
Now we don’t see anywhere in the Bible which speaks
of Christians keeping themselves. They
are to keep themselves pure (1 Tim. 5:22), “Do not lay hands upon anyone too
hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others; keep
yourself free from sin.” They are to keep the commandments of God as seen in
1 John 3:22, and they are to keep the faith (2 Tim. 4:7), also keep themselves
unstrained by the word as James writes in James 1:27, keep themselves from
idols as seen in 1 John 5:21, and keep God’s Word (1 John 2:5), and also keep
themselves in the love of God (Jude 21).
That
is a tall order, but I believe that it is the Holy Spirit and the Word of God
that will be the One who will aid believers in doing this.
4/6/2025 9:21 PM
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