Intro to Eph. 4:1-6 "The Lowly Walk"

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/18/2019 8:28 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Intro to “The Lowly Walk”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 4:1-6

            Message of the verses:  “1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,  2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3  being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

            John MacArthur entitles his tenth chapter of his commentary on the book of Ephesians “The Lowly Walk” and as seen above it covers the first six chapters of the 4^th chapter of Ephesians. 

            As we begin this fourth chapter of Ephesians we see it begins with the word “therefore” a word that as I have mentioned in earlier SD’s is used some 904 times in the Word of God, that is the NASB95 version, which is the version that I use.  This word therefore comes up when we want to look back at what we have learned, and as we look back at the first three chapters of Ephesians we have learned much and so when we see this word “therefore” beginning the fourth chapter we are moving on to, in this case, talk about how we are to live because of what we learned in these first three chapters. 

            What we could compare this section to is a person who joins an organization, or lives in a household and has a desire to follow the rules of the organization in order to be faithful to it.  This is what Paul is going to be talking about here.  Since we are now born-again believers in Jesus Christ there are things that we want to do, things we want to practice as we think about all that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us as He took our place on the cross, suffered the sufferings that we should have suffered, and then died the death that we should have died, all for us.  After that He was buried for three days in the tomb, and then the Spirit of God raised Him to New life which shows that God was satisfied with the death that He died for us.  Once we confess that we are sinners unable to do anything on our own to be acceptable to God we are born from above.  Now since this greatest of miracles has happened to us we are to walk in a worthy manner with the Lord, something that Paul will be talking about as we begin this 4^th chapter of Ephesians.  John MacArthur writes “Sometimes in the church such loyalties to standards and fear of ostracism do not operate with the same force.  To many Christians are glad to have the spiritual security, blessings, and promises of the gospel but have too little sense of responsibility in conforming to its standards and obeying its commands.

            “In the first three chapters of Ephesians Paul as set forth the believer’s position with all the blessings, honors, and privileges of being a child of God.  In the next three chapters he gives the consequent obligations and requirements of being His child, in order to live out salvation in accordance with the Father’s will and to His glory.  The first three chapters set forth truth about the believer’s identity in Christ, and the last three call for the practical response.”

            I want to quote another paragraph at this time from MacArthur’s introductory comments:  “God expects conformity within the church, the Body of Christ.  It is not a forced legalistic conformity to external rules and regulations, but a willing inner conformity to the holiness, love, and will of our heavenly Father, who wants His children to honor Him as their Father.  ‘Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,’ Paul admonished the Philippians, ‘so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel’ (Phil. 1:27).”

            As we live out the Christian life we have to understand right doctrine as this is essential to right living.  It would be impossible to live a faithful Christian life without knowing what biblical doctrine is all about.  To define doctrine we could say that it simply means teaching, and there is no way that even the most sincere believers can live a life that is pleasing to the Lord without knowing what God Himself is like and knowing what the sort of life that God wants us to live out.  If we set biblical theology aside then we will also set aside sound Christian living.  One of the things that I have talked about many times in these Spiritual Diaries is the necessity of knowing and learning God’s attributes, for if we know His attributes then we will know more about who God is and that to me is one of the most important things that any believer can do if he wants to walk worthy with the Lord, and this is something we should all strive for.  When one thinks of how brief our life is on planet earth and the in heaven it goes on for eternity it should be our desire to live our life here on earth in a manner worthy to the Lord.  I have mentioned that our Christian life on earth is just a warm up lap around the track as we prepare to live out life, real life when we get to heaven.

            MacArthur concludes his introductory comments by showing us where we will be headed as we study these six verses:  “In Ephesians 4:1-6 Paul appeals to believers to walk worthily of their high position in Jesus Christ.  In describing that walk he discusses its cal, its characteristics, and its cause.”  We begin, Lord willing, with “The Call To the Worthy Walk” in our next SD.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I look forward to better understand more about my walk with the Lord in a manner that is worthy.  It is my prayer that the Lord will not only teach me more about the worthy walk, but will empower me to live it.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To continue to think about and study the truths found in Romans 12:3.

Scripture verse that goes along with yesterday’s quote:  “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).”

2/18/2019 9:13 AM  

PT-2 "The Lord's Glory" (Eph. 3:20-21)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/17/2019 7:35 AM

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-2 “The Lord’s Glory”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 3:20-21

            Message of the verses:  “20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

            At the end of our last SD I promised that I would quote from the commentary of John MacArthur to help us understand these last two very important verses in the book of Ephesians.

            “There is no situation in which the Lord cannot use us, provide we are submitted to Him.  As is frequently pointed out, verse 20 is a pyramid progression of God’s enablement:  He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask; He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.  There is no question in the minds of believers that God is able to do more than we can conceive, but too few Christians enjoy the privilege of seeing Him do that in their lives, because they fail to follow the pattern of enablement presented in these verses.

            “Paul declared that the effectiveness of his own ministry was that ‘my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ (1 Cor. 2:4), because ‘the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power’ (4:20).  Throughout his ministry the apostle was concerned about ‘giving no cause for offesenses in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God’ (2 Cor. 6:3-7).  Everything Paul did was in the power of God, and in the power of God there was nothing within the Lord’s will that he could not see accomplished.  That same power works within us by the presence of the Spirit (Acts 1:8).

            “When by our yieldedness God is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond ‘all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,’ only then are we truly effective and only then is He truly glorified.  And He deserves ‘glory in the church and in Christ Jesus,’ not only now, but ‘to all generations forever and ever.’  The ‘Amen’ confirms that worthy goal.”

            It is my desire that this quotation will not only help us tie up the things that we have been learning, not only in the prayer Paul is praying, but also in the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians.  Paul taught us many things in the first two and a half chapters of Ephesians, and then he prayed for us to be able to apply these things that we are learning, and will then talk more about what we have learned as we begin the fourth chapter of Ephesians.  This is a very exciting adventure.

Today’s quotation:  “I do not know how much you ought to give.  I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”  (C. S. Lewis) We will look at the Bible verse that goes along with this quote in our next SD.

2/17/2019 7:52 AM

PT-1 "The Lord's Glory" (Eph. 3:20-21)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/16/2019 9:55 AM

My Worship Time                                                                    Focus:   PT-1 “The Lord’s Glory”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 3:20-21

            Message of the verses:  “Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen.

            What we have here is Paul giving a great doxology, a paean (a song of praise or triumph) of praise and glory, which is introduced by the words “No unto Him.”

            John MacArthur writes “When the Holy Spirit has empowered us, Christ has indwelt us, love has mastered us, and God has filled us with His own fulness, then He ‘is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.’  Until those conditions are met, God’s working in us is limited.  When they are met, His working in us is unlimited.  ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believers in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father.  And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.’  (John 14:12-14).”

            I have to say that the first time that I ever “used” these verses was right after my son, who was 18 months at the time, had successful open heart surgery.  He was born with multiple heart issues and actually had his heart taken out of his little chest and repaired.  After this longest day of my life ended I could not help but praise the Lord and a few weeks later I sent a note to our Pastor with these verses on it and he read it before the church.  As I read and study these ending verses of Ephesians chapter three I see that these verses have a sort of condition to them, and that conditions has to do with what we have been learning since 01-31-2019 as we began studying these last verses in Ephesians chapter three.  I take nothing away from the note that I wrote to our church some 38+ years ago, but I am happy that I now have the opportunity to understand better what these verses mean.

            I have to apologize for the shortness of this SD, as there are some things that I have to do later on this morning, but I desire to quote the rest of this rather short section from John MacArthur’s commentary so that we can all get a better idea of what these verses can teach us, which, Lord willing I will do tomorrow.

Verse that goes with yesterday’s quote:  “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).”

2/16/2019 10:19 AM

"God's Fulness" (Eph. 3:19b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/15/2019 9:22 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  “God’s Fulness”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 3:19b

            Message of the verses:  “that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.”

            We get kind of a review of what we have been looking at from the first sentence of John MacArthur’s commentary:  “The inter strengthening of the Holy Spirit leads to the indwelling of Christ, which leads to abundant love, which leads to God’s fulness in us.”  I believe that what we are looking at as we review what we have been learning is that one things is added to another as we learned when we studied the second letter Peter  wrote.  “5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6  and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7  and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love (2 Peter 1:5-7).”  You can’t have moral excellence until you have faith, and you can have knowledge without moral excellence, and as we see here it all ends up with love, something similar to what Paul is writing about in the verses that we have been studying.  However as we read this in the English versions of our Bible it is hard to pick up in Paul’s writing to the Ephesians, but as MacArthur stated in one of his sermons on this subject it is there in the Greek.

            To “be filled up to all the fulness of God” is something that actually will not happen to its fullest this side of heaven.  We just can’t totally understand this truth while on earth in our earthly bodies.  John MacArthur writes “J. Wilbur Chapman often told of the testimony given by a certain man in one of his meetings:

“I got off at the Pennsylvania depot as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the streets for a living.  One day to touched a man on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, mister, can you give me a dime?’  As soon as I saw his face I was shocked to see that it was my own father.  I said, ‘Father, Father, do you know me?’  Throwing his arms around me and with tears in his eyes, he said, ‘Oh my son, at last I’ve found you!  I’ve found you.  You want a dime?  Everything I have is yours.’  Think of it.  I was a tramp.  I stood begging my own father for ten cents, when for 18 years he had been looking for me to give me all that he had.”

            “That is a small picture of what God wants to do for His children.  His supreme goal is bringing us to Himself is to make us like Himself by filling us with Himself, with all that He is and has.

            “Even to begin to grasp the magnitude of that truth, we must think of every attribute and every characteristic of God.  We must think of His power, majesty, wisdom, love, mercy, patience, kindness, longsuffering, and every other thing that God is and does.  That Paul is not exaggerating is clear from the fact that in this letter he repeatedly mentions the fullness of God’s blessings to those who belong to Him through Christ.  He tells us that the church is Christ’s ‘body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all’ (Eph. 1:23).  He tells us that ‘He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things’ (4:10).  And he tells us that God wants every believer to ‘be filled with the Spirit (5:18).”

            MacArthur goes on to write about the Greek word “Pleroo” which is translated to make full or fill to the full which is seen many times in the New Testament.  What this speaks of is dominance as seen for example of a person who is filled with rage, meaning that rage is dominating him totally.  Another example is that if a person is filled with happiness that means that happiness is totally dominated by joy.  (Probably a better example for us.)  So to “be filled up to all the fulness of God” this means to be totally dominated by God, and with nothing left of our own self or any part of the old man, the old nature, or the flesh as all of these seem to have the same meaning, as it speaks of what we were naturally born with.  We have to be emptied with our self in order to be filled with God.  This does not speak of having much of God and little of self, but all of God and none of self.  John MacArthur writes that “this is the recurring theme in Ephesians.  Here Paul talks about ‘the fulness of God;’ in 4:13 it is ‘the fulness of Christ;’ and in 5:18 it is the fulness of the Spirit.”

            We will close with some different Scripture references that go along with showing us how much God loves us as He will not rest until we are completely like Him.  “2 He [David] said, "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; 3 My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; My savior, You save me from violence’ (2 Samuel 22:2-3).”  “2 “What a help you are to the weak! How you have saved the arm without strength! 3 “What counsel you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided!”  “7 “He stretches out the north over empty space And hangs the earth on nothing. 8 “He wraps up the waters in His clouds, And the cloud does not burst under them.”  “"The pillars of heaven tremble And are amazed at His rebuke.”  “13 “By His breath the heavens are cleared; His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent. 14 “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; And how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?’”  (Job 26:2-3, 7-8, 11, 13-14)

            John MacArthur concludes “From our human, earthly perspective we can never see more than ‘the fringes of His ways.’  No. wonder David said that he would not be satisfied until he awoke in the likeness of God (Ps. 17:15).  Only then will we know fully as we have been fully known (1 Cor. 13:12).”  “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake (Ps. 17:15).”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can totally understand what Job said about “the fringes of His ways,” as I try and understand more about God.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To continually be patience in trying to understand more about God and His perfect love that He has for me.

Today’s quotation:  “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them (J. Hudson Taylor).”

PT-4 "Loves Abundance" (Eph. 3:17b-19a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/14/2019 10:09 AM

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-4 “Loves Abundance”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 3:17b-19a

            Message of the verses:  “being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,”

            We ended our last SD talking about the words “breadth and length and height and dept” as seen in verse 18 but as John MacArthur states he does not believe that these represent four specific types or categories of love but simply suggest its vastness and completeness. No matter what way we go we can see God’s love.  For instance when we see that Jews and Gentiles in one body, the church we get a picture of the breadth of God.  We can see God’s length in Him choosing us before the foundation of the world, and for that salvation will last for eternity, which has no end.  In Ephesians 1:3 we get an example of God height of love “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.”  This can also be seen in Eph. 2:6 “and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  When I think of the depth of God’s love I think of Psalm 40.  “I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD. 4 How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. 5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count (Psalm 40:1-5).”

            Ephesians 2:1-3 also speak of God’s depth of love:  “1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

            John MacArthur writes “In what may at first seems a self-contradiction, Paul says that ‘to know the love of Christ…surpasses knowledge.’  Knowing Christ’s ‘love’ takes us beyond human ‘knowledge,’ because it is from an infinity higher source.  Paul is not speaking here of our knowing the love we are to have for Christ but the ‘love of Christ,’ His very own love that He must place in our hearts before we can love Him or anyone else.  We are commanded to love because we are given love.  God always gives before He commands anything in return, and love is one of Christ’s greatest gifts to His church.  Throughout John 14-16 Jesus promises to give love, joy, peace, power and comfort without measure to those who belong to Him.”

            In order for the world to understand the great love that Christ give they would have to be one of His children.  A non-believer cannot understand it because they are not in Christ.  It seems to me that the unbelieving world who has no problem in saying “God is love” only wants to manipulate believers into doing something that they want them to do, but in the end they do not understand God’s love and they surely do not understand His wrath and judgment. The only kind of love that the world understands is I will do something for you as long as you do something for me, and that is not agape love.  Worldly love only lasts until it is offended or rebuffed, but Christ’s love last despite every offense and every rebuff.  Worldly love loves for what it can get, while Christ’s love for what it can give.  What is incomprehensible to the world is to be normal living for the child of God.

            We have two more sub-sections in this chapter on “The Fulness of God,” and hopefully this will only take two days to complete.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful that God has not commanded me to give love until after He has given me love.  “Love insists we do something.  Feelings follow action.  Feelings are the fruit, not the root, of love.  If you give your enemy something to eat or drink something happens to your feelings.  When you invest yourself in someone, you begin to feel differently toward him or her.”  This comes from the booklet “Love in Action” by David Jeremiah.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Remember the truth of Romans 12:3.

Scripture that goes along with yesterdays quote:  “Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning (Proverbs 9:9).”

2/14/2019 10:44 AM

PT-3 "Loves Abundance" (Eph. 3:17b-19a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/13/2019 7:58 AM

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-3 “Loves Abundance”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 3:17b-19a

            Message of the verses:  “and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,”

            I think it would be fair to say that the last two SD’s on this section from Ephesians 3:17b-19a have been like an introduction to these verses.  As we look at the last half of verse seventeen and then verse eighteen we could ask a question.  What happens when we as believers are “rooted and grounded in love?”  The answer is seen in verse 18 as we become “able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and dept” of love.  We have to be immersed in love before we can comprehend its fullness and it as to be the very root and ground of our being.  John MacArthur writes “When someone asked the famed jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong to explain jazz, he replied, ‘Man, if I got to explain it, you ain’t got it.’  In some ways that simplistic idea applies to love.  It cannot truly be understood and comprehended until it is experienced.  Yet the experience and working of love that Paul is talking about in this passage is not emotional or subjective.  It is not nice feeling or warm sentiments that bring such comprehension, but the actual working of God’s Spirit and God’s Son in our lives to produce a love that is pure and sincere, selfless and serving.  To be ‘rooted and grounded in love’ requires being rooted and grounded in God.  When we are saved, God’s love is ‘poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us’ (Rom. 5:5).  It is the Lord Himself who directs our ‘hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ’ (2 Thess. 3:5).”

            Why is love available to every Christian?  The answer is that Christ is available to every Christian.  Paul writes that believers will become “able to comprehend with all the saints” and he is not saying just the even tempered Christian or the naturally pleasant and agreeable Christian, but “all the saints.”  He is not talking only about some supposed special class of Christians who have an inside spiritual track either, for it is for and also commanded of every Christian as he states “all the Christians.” 

            For this to happen to us as believers we have to be continually immersed in the things of God and the best way to do that is to be in His Word.  Jeremiah wrote “Thy words were found and I ate them and Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts (Jeremiah 15:16).”  Job said “I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” in Job 23:12.  The psalmist tells us that the delight of the righteousness person “is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night” Psalm 1:2.

            As we look at comprehending “what is the breadth and length and height and dept” of love we will understand its fulness.  Love goes in every direction and to the greatest distance.  We can see this in what God did for us by sending His Son to earth and taking our place by dying on the cross to pay for our sins, and know that He went all the way for us because of His great love for us, His love was full. 

            We will attempt to finish this section on love in our next SD.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have a friend who demonstrates Christ’s love by standing out in all kinds of weather talking to woman who are about to have their babies killed through abortion.  I have begun to pray for her daily, especially on Wednesday’s as she will be out there today sharing the love of Christ in all of its fulness to those who believe that they have the right to commit murder.  I don’t know how many babies that the Lord has allowed her to save, but I do know that it is because of her love for the Lord that she does what she does.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  That Christ will fill me with His love today and every day.

Today’s quote:  “The wise man is he who has given himself to Jesus Christ, and who, by the help of the Holy Spirit, keeps his intellect in submission to the will of God.”  (Spiros Zodiates) 

Bible verse that goes along with this quote in our next SD.

2/13/2019 8:34 AM

PT-2 "Loves Abundance" (Eph. 3:17b-19a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2019 10:19 AM

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  PT-2 “Loves Abundance”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 3:17b-19a

            Message of the verses:  “and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19  and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,”

            We ended our last SD talking about agape love, and I want to add that agape love is a matter of the will and it is not a matter of feeling or emotion, though deep feelings and emotions almost always accompany love.  I suppose that John 3:16 is the classic text on God loving the world, and this was not just a matter of feeling; however it did result in God sending His Son to redeem the world.  John 15:13 says “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  It does not say “Greater love has no one than to have warm feelings for his friends,” and there is a huge difference there.

            Jesus Christ obeyed the will of His Father by coming to earth to die for all those who would turn to Him and trust Him for their salvation.  This was action and this action is described by Paul in his letter to the Philippians.  Phil. 2:5-8 says “5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  This describes the action that Christ took in dying for us.

            This kind of love does not come natural to believers as it has to be given to us by the Spirit of God as He works in our life to accomplish it in us.  John MacArthur writes “We can only love as Christ loves when He has free reign in our hearts.  ‘By this,’ John says, ‘the love of God was manifested in us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us…We love, because He first loved us’ (1 John 4:9-12, 19).

            “When the Spirit empowers our lives and Christ is obeyed as the Lord of our hearts, our sins and weaknesses are dealt with and we find ourselves wanting to serve others, wanting to sacrifice for them and serve them—because Christ’s loving nature has truly become our own.  Loving is the supernatural attitude of the Christian, because love is the nature of Christ.  When a Christian does not love he has to do so intentionally and with effort—just as he must do to hold his breath.  To become habitually unloving he must habitually resist Christ as the Lord of his heart.  To continue the analogy to breathing, when Christ has his proper place in our hearts, we do not have to be told to love—just as we do not have to be told to breathe.  Eventually it must happen, because loving is as natural to the spiritual person as breathing is to the natural person.”

            One may think that this kind of love does not always happen in the life of the believer, especially when it comes to relationships in the home between a husband and a wife.  Husbands are commanded to love (agape) their wives, which is different than the romantic kind of love that husbands and wives have for each other.  Paul talks about this later on in this letter to the Ephesians, 5:25, 28. 

            This kind of love applies to everyone with whom the believer has contact, especially his fellow Christians.  Loving other is an act of obedience, and not loving them is an act of disobedience. 

            John MacArthur writes that “The absence of love is the presence of sin.  The absence of love has nothing at all to do with what is happening to us, but everything to do with what is happening in us.  Sin and love are enemies, because sin and God are enemies.  They cannot coexist.  Where one is, the other is not. The loveless life is the ungodly life; and the godly life is the serving, caring, tenderhearted, affectionate, self-giving, self-sacrificing life of Christ’s love working through the believer.”

            The following quote comes from “Love in Action” by David Jeremiah, the same little book that I quoted from yesterday.  “Believers are to follow the way of love, to do everything in love, to serve on another in love, to live a life of love, to speak the truth in love, to put on love, to pursue love, to spur one another on to love, and to love not only in words but in actions and truth.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Loving does not come natural to believers because of still having the old nature, and so loving one another has to come from the Lord as His Spirit fills us.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will continue to work in my heart the truths of Romans 12:3.

Scripture verse from yesterday’s quote:  “He who answer a matter before he hears it, it is a folly and a shame to him (Proverbs 18:13).”

2/12/2019 10:55 AM