EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/25/2025 8:41 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“PT-4 Introduction to 2 John 5-13”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 John 5-13
Message of the verses: “5 Now I ask you,
lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one
which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 6 And this is
love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just
as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. 7 For many
deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus
Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
8 Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that
you may receive a full reward. 9 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in
the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching,
he has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not
bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give
him a greeting; 11 for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his
evil deeds. 12 Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do
so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, so
that your joy may be made full. 13 The children of your chosen sister greet
you.”
I am going to continue to quote from John MacArthur’s
introduction to these verses in 2 John, and then I may make some of my own
comments after I am done quoting from MacArthur’s commentary.
“To
say that all men are totally depraved is not to say each is as bad as the
other, or as evil as possible. That
cannot be true because even ‘evil men’ in general ‘proceed from bad to worse’
(2 Tim. 3:13). But all men are
alienated, ‘excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in
them’ (Eph. 4:18), unable to do anything to please God—especially to do the
highest good: to repent and
believe. If an unregenerate sinner, on
his own, by a free act of his will, could believe in God or Christ, then he
would do the greatest work of all. But
Scripture says he cannot please God. The
Bible would lie if he could, and it would have to be said that sinners are not
dead, powerless, alienated, darkened, and hopeless. But unregenerate sinners do not have the
ability to believe savingly. If they did
have the power to do what pleases God, they should be glorified for it—maybe even
worshiped. But no one can be saved
except by divine, sovereign, regenerating grace—and God grants that apart from
any righteous act, but only in connection with the hearing and believing of the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In
another Spiritual Diary which I am doing on 2 Timothy I have recently gone over
some similar things that are spoken of in the paragraph above. If one wants to look at my SD’s on 2 Timothy
they are in a similar place on my blog as the ones from 2 John.
“If
salvation of one who heard the gospel was conditioned on his ability to
believe, then there would be no need for efficacious grace. And God would be taking too much credit for
His part in salvation by saying it is all through His grace. But this is a foolish, if not blasphemous,
notion. No sinner can do anything that
pleases God, and only God can sovereignly grant saving faith by grace alone,
and He does so only through Christ. Paul
writes on this matter:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of
His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed
on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace (Eph.
1:3-7).
“If
salvation is by man’s will, then what is the point of God’s electing a
people? But all the redeemed are elect
in Christ, the Beloved, and saved through the divine gift of trust in Him and
His work (Eph. 2:8-9; cf. Rom. 1:16).”
“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
(Eph. 2:8-9).”
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of
God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek (Rom. 1:16).”
I
understand that it is hard to believe that I as a person have had nothing to do
with the salvation God gave to me on 01-26-1974, but it is true. Now it took me a while to realize that I
really had nothing to do with it, but as I have stated in other SD’s when I was
a very young boy I thought that swearing in front of older friends would make
them think that I am cool. On July 5,
1966 I was inducted into the army during the heart of the Vietnam War, and
although I would not have run away to another country I really did not want to
be there. I made a deal with God to
quite swearing if He got me out of the army.
I had a problem with albumin in my urine which I never had before. Three days in the army and after testing for
albumin I was told that I would be going home.
Once home and then going back to my job at Ford I was tested again and
did not have it, and I have never had it again.
Oh the swearing part I promised God to stop, I didn’t keep that promise,
after three weeks I forgot all about it.
In January of 1973 after being married for 5 months I went alone to
visit a friend in Florida. He gave me
some tapes to listen to about the end times, and it was on the 26th
of that month the Lord saved me, and guess what? God tool away my swearing and
I have never swore again. God did what I could not do, and that is how I knew
that He saved me. He also gave me a great
love for His Word and I have been pretty faithful in studying it since He saved
me. I can say Jesus Paid it All, and God
did it all, and I don’t understand it all, but I do believe that God saved me
51+ years ago.
4/25/2025 9:17 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment