SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2025 10:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Scripture
Provides Instruction for Sanctification”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy
3:16-17
Message of the verses: “16 All Scripture is
inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for
training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped
for every good work.”
I continue looking at these favorite verses of mine
in this morning’s SD. I have a lot of
favorite verses and this certainly ranks near the top. 2 Timothy 2:15 is another favorite verse and
that is the verse that I have used to name my blogs after: “Study to show yourself approved to God, a
workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
I
begin this SD by once again quoting from John MacArthur’s commentary as he
writes “The first predicate adjective that describes Scripture, namely, its
being inspired by God, focuses on the authority of His written Word. Theopneustos
(inspired by God) literally means, ‘breathed out by God,’ or simply, ‘God-breathed.’ God sometimes breathed His words into the
human writers to be recorded much as dictation.
He said to Jeremiah: ‘Behold, I
have put My words in your mouth’ (Jer. 1:9).
But, as clearly seen in Scripture itself, God’s divine truth more often
flowed through the minds, souls, hearts, and emotions of His chosen human
instruments. Yet by whatever means, God
divinely superintended the accurate recording of His divinely breathed truth by
His divinely chosen men. In a
supernatural way, He has provided His divine Word in human words that any
person, even a child, can be led by His Holy Spirit to understand sufficiently
to be saved.”
I
have to say AMEN to what MacArthur has written in the paragraph above. A person
cannot truly understand the Word of God until that person become born from
above, or born-again, and so the first real time a person understands the
Scriptures comes from the time that the Holy Spirit of God opens their hearts
to understand verses that He uses to give that person an effective call to
salvation. There are pastors in this
world who are not truly born-again, but preach from the Word of God, and so
even if a pastor is not truly saved, but preaches from the Word of God then the
Holy Spirit can use those divinely inspired words to cause a person to become a
born-again believer. I have heard
stories about this, in fact the time that I became a believer was when I was
listening to some “end time sermons” from Hal Lindsey and the person who let me
listen to those cassette tapes (I’m aging myself) who said to me that he was a
believer, but then said to a friend of mine a few years later that he was not
into that any more. But it was the
messages that I heard from those tapes that the Spirit of God used to repent of
my sins and then to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to come into my life which
happened on the 26th of January 1974.
MacArthur
goes on to write “It is of utmost importance to understand that it is Scripture
that is inspired by God, not the men divinely chosen to record it. When speaking or writing apart from God’s
revelation, their thoughts, wisdom, and understanding were human and
fallible. They were not inspired in the
sense that we commonly use that term of people with extraordinary artistic,
literary, or musical genius. Nor were they inspired in the
sense of being personal repositories of divine truth which they could dispense
at will. Many human authors of
Scripture penned other documents, but none of those writings exist today, and
even if discovered, they would not carry the weight of Scripture. We know, for instance that Paul wrote at
least two other letters to the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 5:9; 2 Cor. 2:4), but
no copies of those letters have ever been found. The letters doubtless were godly, spiritually
insightful, and blessed of the Lord, but they were not Scripture.”
Now
notice the highlighted sentence above and what does that make you think of? Well it makes me think of Popes in the Catholic
Church who has in the past done such things, things like purgatory, something
that is not mentioned in the Word of God, something like the Lord Jesus Christ’s
mother who has been elevated to a god in the Catholic Church. When it comes to Mary, she too had to become
a true believer in her Son in order to become saved. When one studies the Bible carefully they
realize that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, but later on Mary had other
children, so that means that she did not remain a virgin any longer. Joseph was instructed by the Lord not to have
any sexual relations with her while she was carrying Jesus in her womb. But afterwards, like I said the Bible shows
she had other children.
The
Bible is truly the Word of God, and one has to understand that God knows everything,
as one studies His attributes they can learn that, so it is important to
believe all of His attributes. As I
close this SD I will give a list of what Charles Spurgeon listed as the Attributes
of God.
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life Today: I never want to forget how powerful God
is. I always want to believe and live
like God is in control of all things, and that He is gracious and loving to me
even when it hurts me it is for my own good.
It is my desire to know God and this happens when I study His Word and
the Spirit of God uses that Word to help me to understand more about God.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to have the Lord led my wife into
the kind of treatment that she needs in order to rid her body of any know
cancer left over after her surgery, and through this process it will bring
glory to the Lord.
5/26/2025 10:52 AM
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