PT-3 "The Consequence with Ourselves: Singing" (Eph. 5:19-21)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/21/2019 9:03 PM

 

My Worship Time                              Focus:  PT-3 “The Consequence with Ourselves: Singing”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:19-21

 

            Message of the verses:  “19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns

and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20  always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;  21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            Singing is something that all true believers in Jesus Christ should do because of what the Lord did for us in dying in our place, and so we have the privilege of singing about the wonderful salvation that God provided for us.  Singing is very important to believers.  The last thing Jesus and His disciples did after the “Last Supper was to sing a hymn before they went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested as seen in Matthew 26:30.  Another thing we can learn from Scripture about singing is that Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them as they were in jail after being beaten for the cause of Christ, and yet even after this they began to sing to the Lord.  (Acts 16:25) 

 

            John MacArthur writes “In Ephesians 5:19 Paul explains among whom, from where, with what, to whom, and how Spirit-filled believers are to sing.

 

            “Among whom do believers sing?  The primary audience for our singing is to be fellow believers, ‘one another.’  Throughout Scripture the singing of God’s people is shown to be within the fellowship of believers.  No music in the Bible is ever characterized as being or intended to be evangelistic.  God may use the gospel content set to music to bring the truth to the lost and thus lead them to Himself.  Since the message is so powerful, the open heart may receive it even though it comes with a melody.  But that is not the intent for music, and when emotions are played on without a clear or complete presentation of God’s truth to the mind, such music can be counterproductive by producing a feeling of well-being and contentment that is a counterfeit of God’s peace and that serves to further insulate an unbeliever form the saving gospel.”

 

            I have issues with the rock style “gospel” music as at times it produces feelings that are not really what it takes to bring about true salvation, and at times it is only used for entertainment. 

 

            At this point I am not going to say anymore about this subject, as my feelings my offend someone and I do not wish to do that, as I have my opinion on what type of music that I like to listen to and sing in our church services and am very content with what we sing.  I mentioned that in Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s book entitled “Real Worship” that he stated that music was one of the biggest dividing points with people as it seems that in every generation the younger people want to have a different kind of music to sing in churches which at times offends the older saints in the church and this causes trouble and division.

            In our evening service we sang a newer song, well the words were not new as they came from one of the Psalms, I think Psalm 52 and after the singing of that song our Pastor said that in certain churches all the songs that are sung come from the Psalter and it was refreshing to sing one of those songs.   Since I am teaching through the book of Psalms I have to agree with his statement.

 

            Lord willing, in our next SD we will be looking at the sub-section entitled “How do Believers sing?

 

Our quotation today comes from Billy Sunday who stated “One reason sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.”

 

7/21/2019 9:27 PM

PT-2 "The Consequence with ourselves: singing" (Eph. 519)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/20/2019 9:09 AM

 

My Worship Time                              Focus:  PT-2 “The Consequence with ourselves: singing”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:19

 

            Message of the verse:  “19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;”

 

            I looked up different synonyms for “consequence” and came up with a couple that I liked better:  “result and outcome” are two that I think work better than consequence, but not that I know that we will continue to use this word to help us understand what happens when believers are fill with the Holy Spirit and the first one is singing.  That is something else that I did not connect with being filled with the Holy Spirit, but I understand it better now.  Sometimes I kind of get a bit depressed when I read all about these things that I am suppose to be doing in my walk with the Lord because I don’t seem to be doing them on a regular basis.  In my Sunday school lesson from last week I quoted a man named Donald Williams who comments on Psalm one and I think that it is good to quote it here to help us not to be upset when we fail to do the things that we desire to do.  “The very call to blessing, however, precipitates a crisis.  Who can avoid the counsel of the ungodly in our secular society?  Who can meditate on the Word of God day and night?  Who can be fruitful and evergreen?  Certainly we cannot fulfill this high calling.  But take heart—One can and does.  This very calling is consummated by the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is He who lives in perfect communion with the Father (John 5:19-20).  It is He who delights in the Word of God, and it is He who prospers in all His ways.  In Christ we become the blessed person of Psalm 1.  He is the God-man who fulfills the divine demand and incorporates us into the divine life (1 John 1:3).  It is He who gives us His own righteousness.  As we live in communion with Him, we will be that tree planted and our way will be known to the Lord.  As we live in communion with Him, His psalms become our psalms and the road to happiness, to blessing, is ours.”  It may be good for everyone to look up the first Psalm to help them better understand this quote. 

 

            John MacArthur writes of visiting a missionary couple living in the high mountains of Ecuador, the Andes Mountains and leaned that people there were not responding to the gospel for a long time frustrating the missionaries.  Suddenly the Holy Spirit began to move and many were saved and one of the first evidences of their salvation was their singing as they sang for hours in their thatch roofed church.  This was much different than the unsaved pagans who did not come to know the Lord. 

 

            I remember hearing a story of a sort of famous man whose wife was a singer and they were at a rally where his wife sang very beautifully.  Next another woman sang and although her voice was not as good her spirit was much better and tears filled those who heard her sing.  It is what inside that counts and not our outside voice that at times we sing for ourselves.

 

            John MacArthur writes “One of the greatest distinctions of Christianity should be in its music, because the music God gives is not the music the world gives.  In Scripture, the word new is used more frequently in relation to song than to any other feature of salvation.  God gives His new creatures a new song, a different song, a distinctive song, a purer song, and a more beautiful song than anything the world can produce.”  We have been getting into two “touchy” subjects as we have been talking about drinking wine and not singing.  In Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s book “Real Worship” he mentions that music was one of the things that has caused more troubles in the church than anything else.  Some churches only sing from the Psalter and others sing older church hymns and others sing the kind with the rock and roll bands play.  Some people condemn others for the kind of music that they sing thinking their worship music is the best.  As believers we do sing a new song because of what has happened to us in our hearts as we once were lost but not am found by the Lord who saved us.  I remember that my first Pastor that I had after being saved stated that there are some people who do not believe that angels sing, even though some translations state that they do.  He said that only those who have been saved have a new song and angels that stayed with the Lord after Satan took one third of them to be with him, the ones left were never saved but stayed with the Lord because of their devotion to Him.  Not sure that I believe that angels sing.

 

            We will talk more about this most difficult subject of music in our next SD, Lord willing.

 

The verses that go along with David Jeremiah’s quote from yesterday are from Proverbs 2:10-11 “When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you: understanding will keep you.”

 

7/20/2019 9:38 AM  

 

PT-1 "The Consequence with ourselves:singing" (Eph. 5:19)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/19/2019 9:52 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus:  Intro to Eph. 5:18b-21

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 5:18b-21

 

            Message of the verses:  “but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            On my other blog I was looking again at Psalm 137, a Psalm of remembering and in the first part of the Psalm we read about some of the children of Israel who were captive in Babylon at that time they were asked to play their harps and sing songs about Israel.  They refused to do so.  We look at verse 19 see that as believers we are to sing psalms and hymns making melody with our hearts to the Lord.  We can do this because we have been forgiven all of our sins, and we can do this because our home is in heaven as we are just spending our time here on earth for a very short time in order to do what the Lord has planned for us to do for His glory, and that is worth singing about.

 

            After the Lord’s command to be “filled with the Spirit”, Paul gave a summary of the consequences of obedience to that command.  The consequences are given in verses 19-21 which is what we will be looking at as me move through the outline from John MacArthur’s 20^th chapter of his commentary in which he names this chapter “Be Filled with the Spirit—part 2.

 

            MacArthur writes “Consequences of the Spirit-filled life (which greatly enrich our understanding of its nature) are mentioned throughout the remainder of the epistle, and in these verses we are given three of the most significant ones:  singing, giving thanks, and submission.  When God’s Spirit controls us he will put a song in our own hearts and on our lips, give us thankfulness to God, and make us submissive to others.  The first initially inward, the second upward, and the third outward.  The filling of the Holy Spirit makes us rightly related to ourselves, to God, and to others.”

 

The Consequence with ourselves:  Singing.  “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the lord” (Eph. 5:19).

 

            I may have mentioned in an earlier SD that my wife and I attended a conference for about three days back in October of 1980 in which I made some decisions that have affected my walk with the Lord.  The speaker desired for believers to read their Bible each and every day and asked those who wanted to, to make a vow to the Lord to read their Bible at least five minutes a day.  I did this and then after that I made a vow to pray at least five minutes a day.  I realize that this was a rather short time period, yet it did get me into the Word of God and in prayer each and every day.  Another thing that the speaker wanted us to do was to memorize Scripture and to meditate on that Scripture some much that the Lord would give us a song from that portion of Scripture that we put to memory.  I began to memorize the first Psalm and true to the speakers word the Lord gave me a song, and then later on after I gave the tune to a lady in our church she wrote music to it and actually played it one Sunday evening.  I believe that this is what Paul might have been writing about in this verse.

 

            It seems like the Spirit-filled life’s first consequence would be more than making music as this is not a really big mountain-moving showing of faith, or an ecstatic spiritual experience, a dynamic speaking ability, or any other thing like that, but first He wants us to simply have a heart that sings.  MacArthur writes, “When a believer walks in the Spirit, he has an inside joy that manifests itself in music.  God puts music in the souls and then on the lips of His children who walk in obedience.” 

 

            I will close with the following.  A couple of weeks ago our church celebrated our senior Pastor and his wives (pastor to the seniors) 50 years of ministry to the Lord.  Our senior pastor is rather short but one can always know when he is around for he constantly whistles, and he does this because he is happy.  I have to believe that Pastor Golden is filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Those earlier days of being a believer in Christ were very special, especially composing a short little song to Psalm one. 

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to continue to teach me to be humble, and to rely on Him, and to fill me with His Spirit.

 

Today’s quotation is from David Jeremiah who states “Wisdom is development wisdom is discipline wisdom is discernment wisdom is discretion wisdom is depth of understanding wisdom is devotion to God.”

 

7/19/2019 10:29 AM

             

PT-3 "The Means of Being Filled" (Eph. 5:18b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/18/2019 11:29 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-3 “The Means of Being Filled”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:18b

 

            Message of the verse:  “but be filled with the Spirit.”

 

            In Ephesians 4:1 we read “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,” and the highlighted words show us a good analogy of a moment-by-moment yielding to the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit filled life style yields every step to the Spirit of God.  As we move through life as a believer we can take one thought at a time and give it to the Spirit, or perhaps every step we take spiritually causes us to turn them over to the Lord so that His Spirit will fill us in order to do the things that He has planned for us to do, and as we continue to yield to the Spirit He will fill us and empower us to accomplish what He wants us to accomplish for the cause of Christ.

 

            I really wish it were that simple to follow this plan of walking in step with the Spirit, but as Paul writes in his letter to the Romans we many times do the things we should not do and the things we want to do we can’t do because of the sin-nature we have, so what we have been talking about is difficult but we are not to give up.

 

            John MacArthur writes “Not to be filled with the Spirit is to fall back into ‘the deeds of the flesh…which are:  immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these (Gal. 5:19-21).  We do not have to consciously choose to do the deeds of the flesh.  If we are not living under the control of God’s Word and Spirit, the deeds of the flesh are the only things we can do, because the flesh is the only resource we have in ourselves.

 

            “The sole defense against the negative power of temptation, sin, and Satan is the positive power of the Holy Spirit.  We have no power over those evils, and to try to combat them in our own strength is to try to walk on water by our own power.  We sin spiritual victories only when God’s Holy Spirit, does battle for us.

 

            “But when we surrender to the control of God’s Spirit, we find Him producing amazing things in us, things which are entirely of His doing.  Paul calls these marvelous blessings the fruit of the Spirit, and they are:  ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’ (Gal. 5:22-23).  The person who is Spirit-controlled and who bears the Spirit’s fruit is the person who belongs to Christ and who has ‘crucified  the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live by the Spirit,’ Paul continued, ‘let us also walk by the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:24-25).  To walk in the Spirit is to fulfill the ultimate potential and capacity of our life on earth as God’s children.”

 

The verse that goes along with Corrie Ten Boom’s quotation if Matthew 6:31-32 “Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’…For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”        7/18/2019 11:51 PM

PT-2 "The Means of Being Filled" (Eph. 5:18b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/17/2019 10:21 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-2 “The Means of Being Filled”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:18b

 

            Message of the verses:  “Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit” (NLT).

 

            When we talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit there are some who think that you have to be of some influential group of people and have some kind of a special formula in order to have this privilege of being filled with the Holy Spirit.  When we look at both Colossians 3:16-25 and also Ephesians 5:19-33 we see Paul writing what happens when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit.  The following is from Colossians 3:16-25 “15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. 20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart. 22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.”  I have to say that this puts a whole new light on these verses to me.

 

            John MacArthur writes “To be filled with God’s Spirit is to be filled with His Word.  And as we are filled with God’s Word, it controls our thinking and action, and we thereby come more and more under the Spirit’s control.  As Charles Spurgeon said, the Christian’s blood should be ‘Bibline,’ bleeding Scripture wherever he may be pricked or cut.”

 

            When we think about the apostle Peter we often talk about some of the things that he says and does which make us think about Peter having foot in mouth problems.  However as long as Peter stayed close to the Lord he did not have this kind of problem, and as long as we stay close to the Lord through His Word and the preaching and teaching of His Word then we will also be better off just like Peter.

 

            A couple of examples in Peter’s life are the fact that he was the only person, other than Jesus Christ who walked on water, that is until he took his eyes off of the Lord.  Next example was when Jesus asked His disciples who He was and Peter right away said that He was the Messiah, and was his Lord.  Jesus told Him that it was not flesh and blood who told him that Jesus was the Messiah, but “My Father in heaven.”  John MacArthur writes “A short while later, however, Peter pitted his own understanding against the Lord’s and discovered that he then spoke for Satan rather than for God (16:22-23).”

            Now it was after Jesus was raised from the dead and then taken back into heaven that His promise of the Holy Spirit filling His disciples was fulfilled.  In my Bible reading this morning I was looking at Acts chapters three and four, and in chapter four we see the boldness of Peter as he confronts the Jewish leaders, and the reason that He does this is because he was filled with the Holy Spirit.  This is recorded in Acts 4:1-22. 

 

            I will conclude this SD with one more quote from John MacArthur’s commentary where he writes “To ‘be filled with the Spirit’ is to live in consciousness of the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, as if we were standing next to Him, and let His mind dominate our life.  It is to fill ourselves with God’s Word, so that His thoughts will be our thoughts, His standards our standards, His work our work, and His will our will.  As we yield to the truth of Christ, the Holy Spirit will lead us to say, do, and be what God wants us to say, do, and be.  ‘We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3:18).  Christ consciousness leads to Christ likeness.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To yield to the Spirit’s control is what we are learning about here, and this is something that I indeed desire to do.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to remember that everything that I do for the cause of Christ I need to be humble in doing it because that is the only way I can do things for the cause of Christ.

 

Today’s quotation is from Corrie Ten Boom who states “Worry is and old man with bended head, carrying a load of feathers which he thinks are lead.”

 

7/17/2019 10:56 AM

           

 

 

PT-1 "The Means of Being Filled"

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/16/2019 10:01 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-1 “The Means of Being Filled”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Ephesians 5:18b

 

            Message of the verse:  “but let the Spirit stimulate your souls” (Phillips).

 

            I need to begin with a couple of things before we get into looking at the subject at hand.  First of all we are looking at the second sub-section under the main section of “The command,” and next I want to say that this subject has been kind of a difficult one for me to truly understand, and so I am excited to continue to look at what the filling of the Holy Spirit is all about for me as a believer in Jesus Christ.

 

            We see from the title of this main section “The Command” that the filling of the Holy Spirit is commanded from our God and we can be sure that God commands nothing for which He does not provide the means to obey that command.  Another thing we need to understand that if God commands something then we need to pray for it.  I have mentioned that in the book of Daniel that Daniel knew that the Lord was going to send the children of Israel back to the Promised Land 70 years after they were first taken captive and so once that time got close then Daniel prayed for this to happen, and it surely did happen.  This gives me something that I must pray for as far as God’s command of me as a believer to pray that I will be filled with the Holy Spirit.  I must realize that it is God’s deepest desire that each of His children, including me, be filled with His Spirit.  I only need to discover the resources He has provided to carry out this obedience, and I look forward to understanding them.

 

            John MacArthur writes “To ‘be filled with the Spirit’ involves confession of sin, surrender of will, intellect, body, time, talent, possessions, and desires.  It requires the death of selfishness and the slaying of self-will.  When we die to self, the Lord fills with His Spirit.  The principle stated by John the Baptist applies to the Spirit as well as to Christ:  ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3:30).”

 

            I apologize that this will be a really short SD this evening as my wife and I were gone from our house most all of today as we went with a senior’s church group to view a play in what we in Ohio call “Amish Country.”  To top it off on the way home I had to drive through a very bad thunder storm, and I am thankful to the Lord that He got us home safely.

 

Today’s verse that goes along with yesterday’s quotation from John Wesley is from Matthew 28:19 “God therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

 

7/16/2019 10:18 PM

PT-5 "The Meaning of Being Filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/15/2019 9:11 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                     Focus:  PT-5 “The Meaning of Being Filled”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Ephesians 5:18b

 

            Message of the verses:  “but be filled with the Spirit,”

 

          John MacArthur writes the following after writing about how Stephen was filled with the Spirit even when he was about to be stoned to death.  “Being filled with the Spirit detaches us from the desires, the standards, the objectives, the fears, and the very system of this world and gives us a vision of God that comes in no other way.  Being filled with the Spirit makes everything else of secondary importance, and often of no importance at all.”  Just before Stephen died by stoning he looked into heaven and saw the Lord standing beside God.  I have read that Jesus stood up to welcome Stephen into glory.

 

            As we look through the New Testament we see that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and then later in Acts 4:8 we read that Peter was filled with the Spirit again as he was speaking to the Jewish leaders.  When Saul saw the Lord on the road to Damascus he became blinded and three days later God sent Ananias to lay his hands on Saul and tell him that he would regain his sight and that he would be filled with the Spirit to accomplish what the Lord had for him to do for the cause of Christ.  We also see in Acts chapter eleven that Barnabas was also filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

            John MacArthur concludes this long sub-point with the following paragraph:  “The concern we often hear about recapturing the dedication, zeal, love, and power of the early church is commendable.  But we cannot have the early church’s spiritual power simply by trying to copy its methods of operation.  We can experience those believers’ spiritual power only when we are surrendered to the Holy Spirit’s control as they were.  It was not their methodology but their Spirit-filled lives that empowered believers to turn the world upside down in the first century (Acts 17:6).”

 

            It is my desire to have the Holy Spirit fill me each and every day, but especially when I am doing the things that God has chosen for me to do which He ordained for me to do before the foundation of the world as seen in Ephesians 2:10 that way He will receive all of the glory and that is the main thing that I want to do.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I desire to keep my life clean from the things that are in this world in order for the Spirit of God to fill me to accomplish what the Lord has for me to do.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To continue to think about and learn humility so that the Spirit can fill me.

 

Today’s quotation is from John Wesley:  “O Lord, let us not live to be useless, for Christ’s sake.”

7/15/2019 9:33 AM