Friday, April 4, 2025

PT-3 "Lovers of Self" (2 Tim. 3:2-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/4/2025 8:57 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus:  PT-3 “Lovers of Self”

 

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

 

            Message of the verses:  2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God;”

 

            In this section of Paul’s second letter to Timothy Paul uses a lot of words, words that describe how mankind will be acting in the last days, and so we will begin to look at the first words “Lovers of self” in today’s SD and see how many of these words we can look at this morning.

 

            I continue to look at “Lovers of self” in this SD.  I first want to quote from the last paragraph that I looked at yesterday in order to set the tone for what we will be looking at this morning.  “In the present passage, it is not the kind of love that is evil but the wrongly elevated object of that love, namely self.  Whenever love for self is raised, love for God and the things of God is lowered.  For that reason, misdirected love always engenders vice.  It was first from Lucifer’s and then from Adam’s and Eve’s love of themselves over the Lord—and from the similar self-love of their descendants—that every other sin has issued.”  Now the opposite of this is true when I think of the Lord Jesus Christ for God demonstrated His love for us by sending His Son into the world in order to die on the cross to pay for our sins, however one must first realize that they are sinners, born sinners and that is why all sin.  Next they must confess to the Lord that they are sinners, and realize that they can do nothing on their own about it.  Next accept the forgiveness that God offers you through Jesus’ death on the cross.  If you are sincere realizing that that is the only way to be saved, then the Lord will save you.  Now the proof of this will be a changed life, a life that desires to serve the Lord, to read His Word and to be around His people.

 

            MacArthur goes on by writing “I is for that reason that the most frightening development within the contemporary church is the wide acceptance and enthusiastic proclamation of self-love, not only as being allowable but as being the basic virtue.  Turning God’s truth completely on its head, the source of all evil is touted as the source of all good. An on the other hand, the lack of self-love and its many derivatives—such as self-esteem, self-worth, self-fulfillment, and positive self-image—have been imported almost unchanged into the church from antibiblical secular psychology.”  Now I want to make sure that you understand that the gospel message I put at the end of the last paragraph is not where I picked up writing from the quote from MacArthur’s commentary. 

 

            I have to say that I am going to be looking at these verses for a fairly long time as this is just a warning to you, but I have always tried to make sure that what I write and what I quote are truth about the Word of God as I do not to ever led any astray from my writings.  My desire is to write things from the Word of God in order to first of all bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, by telling the truth about His Word, so that those who do not know Him in a personal way can understand how they can, for those who know Him to grow in their faith.  At the end of each SD that I post I pray that the Father will bless those who read them, and that the Father will be blessed by those who read them.  Next that the Holy Spirit will give an effectual call to those that the Lord chose in eternity past, followed by believers who read these to grow in their faith, then receive revival for those who read them.  Next I ask the Holy Spirit to continue to send them around the world, and from the looks of the stats He surely is answering that prayer.  Lastly I pray that if it is God’s will that the Spirit of God would give the very last effectual call to save the very last person in the Church age so that the Rapture of the Church would take place. 

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I trust the Lord that the things that I write in my Spiritual Diaries will be used by the Spirit of God to further the kingdom of God on earth.

 

My Steps of Faith For Today:  I trust that the Lord will give my wife and I the right direction to go in order to cause her to be cancer free.

 

4/4/2025 9:26 AM    

 

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