SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/19/2025 9:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Scripture
Provides Instruction For Salvation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 3:15
Message of the verse: “and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
I begin looking at the 9th chapter of John
MacArthur’s commentary on 2 Timothy. He
entitles this ninth chapter “The Work of the Word” and it covers 2 Timothy 3:15-17. He writes the following short introduction to
these verses: “No other passage in the
New Testament speaks so concisely of the nature and work of God’s Word in
salvation and sanctification. In this
text, the spiritually transforming power of divine revelation is delineated.”
Now with that short introduction begin looking what is a
very long chapter in MacArthur’s commentary, some 20 pages of what is a very
important subject for all to understand.
I want to begin to look at some Scripture verses that
speak of the source of saving faith, beginning with Psalm 19:7:
“7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.”
“14 “The sower sows the word. 15 “These are the ones who
are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately
Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. 16 "In a
similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places,
who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no firm root in
themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution
arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 "And others are the ones on whom seed was
sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 but the worries of the world, and the
deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke
the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good
soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a
hundredfold” (Mark 4:14-29).
“24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word,
and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into
judgment, but has passed out of death into life. 39 “You search the Scriptures because you
think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;”
(John 5:24; 39).
“18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the
word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures”
(James 1:18).
MacArthur writes “The truth of the Word, when mixed
with faith in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, leads to spiritual
life. In his letter to the church in
Rome, Paul asks rhetorically, ‘How shall they [unbelievers] hear without a
preacher? (Rom. 10:14), and later explains that ‘faith comes from hearing, and
hearing by the word of Christ’ (V. 17). The
Word presented by human witness is “God’s plan for reaching people with the
gospel.”
Jesus
said at the end of the gospel written by Matthew the following: “16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to
Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. 17 When they saw Him, they
worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to
them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19
“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’” (Matt.
28:16-20).
Things are surely different now, and what I mean by
that is that I can set at my desk each and every day in order to write my
Spiritual Diaries, and then the Holy Spirit can use them as I put them onto my
two blogs, use them to reach people all around the world for the cause of
Christ. I delight in doing this for the
cause of Christ and pray each and every day that the Lord would use these
Spiritual Diaries to bring unbelievers to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, to cause believers to grow in their faith, to bring revival to
believers, including to myself, to send these around the world, and if it is
God’s plan that the Holy Spirit would use one of these Spiritual Diaries to
bring an effectual call to the very last person in the Church age, so that the
rapture of the Church will take place, that all believers in the Church age
would then go to meet the Lord in the air.
I
will quote one more paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary to end this Spiritual
Diary. “The women who heard Paul preach
the Word of God at a Jewish place of prayer outside Philippi illustrate the
pattern. Luke reports that ‘a certain
woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, seller of purple fabrics, a
worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to
the things spoken by Paul’ (Acts 16:14).
God has chosen believers to be His spokesmen to bring His saving truth
to others.”
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life Today: I trust that the Lord will use these
Spiritual Diaries to give out the message of salvation, and that the Holy
Spirit will take them around the world for the cause of Christ that those that
the Spirit reaches by them will bring glory to the Lord.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord will continue to use my
Spiritual Diaries to bring unbelievers to Christ, and to cause believers to
grow in the Lord as they read them.
5/19/2025 10:36 AM
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