EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/12/2025 7:54 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “The
Army”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Jude 1-2
Message of the verses: “1 Jude, a bond-servant
of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in
God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy and peace and love be
multiplied to you.”
I will begin with a quote from Dr. Wiersbe as he
writes the following at the beginning of this section on verses 1-2 of
Jude: “The Captain of the army is Jesus
Christ, and the soldiers He commands are people who share a ‘common salvation’ through
faith in Him. Jude called them saints (v-3), which simply means ‘set-apart
one.’ He addressed them as sanctified, which means ‘set apart.’ (Some manuscripts read ‘beloved in God the
Father.’) Perhaps there is an echo here
of 1 Peter 1:2 where all three Persons of the Godhead are seen to be involved
in our salvation.” When writing my
Spiritual Diaries which I then put onto my blogs I have prayer which includes
the truth which Dr. Wiersbe just spoke of.
The Trinity is all involved in the salvation of those who are born-again
believers. God (the Father) chose people
for salvation before the world was created.
(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. Ephesians 1:3-4). Next I thank the Lord Jesus
Christ for coming to earth to be the God-Man and pay the price for my
salvation. Lastly I am thankful that the
Holy Spirit gave me an effectual call which I could not say no to in January of
1974.
Dr.
Wiersbe then goes on “Certainly salvation begins in the heart of God and not in
the will of man (Rom. 9:16). They
mysteries of God’s sovereign electing grace are beyond us in this life and will
never be understood until we enter His glorious presence. For that reason, we are wise not to make them
the basis for arguments and divisions.”
He then references one of my favorite verses: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our
God” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
“Second Thessalonians 2:13-14 makes it clear that
the same God who chose us also set us apart by the Spirit and then called us by
the Gospel to trust in Jesus Christ. God’s
choosing and God’s calling go together, for the God who ordains the end (our
salvation) also ordains the means to the
end (someone calling us to Christ).
We did not understand how God’s Spirit was working in our lives prior to
our conversion, but He was working just the same to (set us apart) For Jesus
Christ.” Now as I think back on when I
became a believer in Jesus Christ I can think of some things that happened to
me before I actually got saved, things that were making me think about
salvation. I took a trip from Ohio to
Florida in November of 1972 making a stop in Atlanta Ga. While there I was looking at some magazines
when a young couple came up to me and began to talk to me about what was going
to happen in the “end times.” I remember
that very clearly and remember talking to some people about that at a
funeral. I believe that God was
preparing me for the time when He through His Spirit would give me the
effectual call in Florida, in January of 1974 which happened five months after
my wife and I were married. I have told
the story in my Spiritual Diaries that my trip to Florida in January of 1974
having the results of that trip much different than what I expected, but God
had other plans for me as I began to listen to a series of tapes about the end
times which the Lord used to open my eyes to the Gospel when He saved me. I have also mentioned that one of the things
that I did since I was around 10 years old was do a lot of swearing, (not
around my mom), but in school and then at work when at 18 I began my career at
Ford Motor’s Cleveland Casting Plant.
The Lord just took those kind of words out of my vocabulary on the day
He saved me and I have not used them again since then some 51 + years ago.
Dr.
Wiersbe goes on: “Not only are God’s
saints set apart, but they are also preserved.
This means ‘carefully watched and guarded.’
The believer is secure in Jesus Christ.
This same word is used in Jude 6 and 13 (‘reserved’) and also in Jude 21
(‘keep yourselves’) God is preserving the fallen angels and the apostates for
judgment, but He is preserving His own children for glory. Meanwhile, He is
able to preserve us in our daily walk and keep us from stumbling.”
Ok
we will continue, Lord willing, with this section in the next SD.
6/12/2025 8:27 PM
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