SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/19/2016 10:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 The Faithful Writings
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 5:39-47
Message of the verses: “39 “You search the Scriptures because you
think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40
and you are unwilling
to come to Me so that you may have life. 41 “I do not receive glory from men;
42 but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. 43 “I
have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in
his own name, you will receive him. 44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one
another and you do
not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? 45 “Do not think
that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have
set your hope. 46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. 47
“But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"”
The section
that we are looking at in today’s Spiritual Diary will take a few days to go
through it, as today I want to look at some of the things that Warren Wiersbe
has to say about these verses from his commentary. As mentioned in earlier SD’s on verses 17-47
they are some of the most important things that are recorded from the mouth of
our Lord as He speaks of the fact that He is truly the Son of God, the very
essences of the Father as we remember two things about this statement and the
first comes from the theme verse of John “but these have been written so that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing
you may have life in His name (John 20:31).”
Another verse that goes along with this section are the words that Jesus
spoke to Philip when he said to Jesus and Jesus answered Him “8 Philip said to
Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." 9 Jesus said
to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know
Me, Philip? He who has
seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ’Show us the Father’ (John
14:8-9).
As we back
up one verse to verse 38 we can see that these Jewish leaders did not permit
the Word of God to generate any faith in their hearts. We can see from verse 39 that they knew about
the Scriptures, but in their study they did not realize the truth of it. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The Jewish scribes sought
to know the Word of God, but they did not know the God of the Word! They counted the very letters of text, but
they missed the spiritual truths that the text contained.” Dr. Wiersbe then gives all of us some good
advice when he writes “The mark of true Bible study is no knowledge that puffs
up, but love that builds up (1 Cor. 8:1).”
“Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have
knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies (1 Cor. 8:1).”
The Jewish
leaders had a problem with their minds as they did not see Christ in their own
Scriptures “14 But their minds were
hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same
veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15 But to this day
whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; 16 but whenever a person
turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But 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. 3:14-18).” “3 And even if our
gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might
not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of
God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves
as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, "Light shall
shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the
Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor.
4:3-6).”
Along with
the problem with their minds they also had a problem with their wills as Dr.
Wiersbe writes: “they would not trust in
the Savior. Because they did not have
the Word in their hearts, they did not want Christ in their hearts. They were religious and selfrighteous, but
they were not saved.”
In John
5:42 we read “but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in
yourselves.” This verse shows us that
these leaders had a lack of love in their hearts which was describing their
next problem. They did not experience
God’s love for them, as well as their expression of love for God. I have to say that this is something that I
have been reading about in a book by Joseph Stowell in a book that I received
from my mother’s collection of book when she went to be with the Lord. The book is entitled “Why It’s So Hard to
Love Jesus,” and in that book he writes about something that happens in Luke
chapter seven where we find Jesus going to a Pharisees house whose name is
Simon and there we find a woman come into the dinner who surely was not invited
and she is seen at the feet of Jesus crying and allowing her tears to fall on
His feet and wiping them with her hair and then anointing his feet with a
fragrant perfume. This woman came from a
background where her morals were bad, and so at some point in time she had
heard Jesus speak and she realized that she was forgiven through Him and thus wanted
to show her love for Jesus and this is why she did what she did. We all can learn a lot from this very
courageous woman on how to love Jesus.
The book is very convicting and my prayer is that God will cause me to
love the One who loved me so much that He took my place on the cross to die for
my sins.
Dr. Wiersbe
then writes “The Lord closed this penetrating sermon by warning the Jewish
leaders that Moses, whom they honored, would be their judge, not their
savior. The very Scriptures that they
used to defend their religion would one day bear witness against them. The Jews knew what Moses wrote, but they did
not really believe what he wrote. It is
one thing to have the Word in our hands or our heads, but quite another thing
to have it in our hearts. Jesus is the
Word made flesh (John 1:14), and the written Word bears witness to the
Incarnate Word. ‘And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself’ (Luke 24:27).”
The witness
that we have been looking at in the past few Spiritual Diaries, John the
Baptist, the miracles, and the witness of the Word of God, all of these untie
to declare that Jesus Christ is indeed One with the Father and who is the very
Son of God.
One of the
things that I love about Dr. Wiersbe’s writings is that many times he has
something to say to my heart and at the end of his commentary on the fifth
chapter of John after speaking about how these Pharisees did not understand the
things that Jesus was telling them and would eventually be a part of those who
would have Him killed Dr. Wiersbe writes “But before we judge them, perhaps we
ought to examine our own lives and churches.
Are we permitting religious tradition to blind us to the truth of God’s
Word? Are we so involved in ‘Bible
Study’ that we fail to see Jesus Christ in the Word? Does our knowledge of the Bible give us a
‘big head’ or a burning heart?’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One of the things that I love doing is to
study the Word of God and to tell others what I’m learning from my study and
that is the reason I publish my Spiritual Diaries onto my blogs. I am thankful for the thoughtful questions
that Dr. Wiersbe has asked as found in his commentaries, thankful that his
writings can be convicting to my heart as I think about them. I realize from the book by Joseph Stowell
that I have to learn more about loving the Lord, and because of His great love
for me, and the Holy Spirit Who lives in me I believe that God will continue to
work in my heart to bring about more love for the One who loves me so much that
I cannot describe all the ways He loves me.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to help me in
my desire to love Him more completely.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “A woman with an issue of blood” (Mark
5:28).”
Today’s Bible question:
“Where did Saul want to go to bind the Christians?”
Answer in our next
SD.
3/19/2016 11:18 AM
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