Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Jesus' Selflessness (John 7:18)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/4/2016 4:33 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  His Selflessness

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 7:18

            Message of the verses:  “18 “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

            Jesus gives us two distinctive of a false teacher in this verse; the first is “He who speaks of himself,” and the second is that “seeks his own glory.”  Jesus did neither of these as we see in the remainder of this verse:  “but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” 

            I once heard a person talking about getting a following by preaching things that are false and they said that this would be easy to do.  I have to believe them, although this I heard around forty years ago and was a very young believer at that time, and did not understand fully what he was saying, but today I can understand it better, and the reason is that unbelievers have a desire to worship something as this is in all people who are born because God put that into them, so all you have to do to attract them is to preach something that they want to hear and they will come running.  Joel Osteen is a prime example of not teaching the truth and having a very large following, in fact this verse from Micah 3:5 speaks of what he is doing “Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets Who lead my people astray; When they have something to bite with their teeth, They cry, "Peace," But against him who puts nothing in their mouths They declare holy war.”  Now we will look at verse eleven “Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, Her priests instruct for a price And her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the LORD saying, "Is not the LORD in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us."”  I think you get the point from these verses, so we can determine that in the OT times, when Jesus was on earth, in the NT times, from the very beginning and up until the times we are living in that has been happening.

            We know that our Lord was different as when He came to earth it was His desire to follow the plan of His Father, to do what He wanted Him to do and to be where He wanted Him to be when He was to be there and so we know from that that Jesus was seeking to do His Father’s will, and to bring glory to Him, which is what He did.  We can look at John chapter 17, which is called “The High Priestly Prayer” and read the following “Joh 17:5  "Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. Joh 17:22  "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; Joh 17:24  "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

            John MacArthur writes “That Jesus came seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, instead of glorifying Himself, verified His claim to be the true Messiah, and showed that there was no unrighteousness in Him.  It is not surprising that the Jewish leaders rejected the One who sought God’s glory, since they were those who ‘receive[d] glory from one another…[did] not seek the glory that is from the one and only God.’ (5:44).”

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To bring glory to my Lord, to know Him better, and to love Him more.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who destroyed Baal worship in Israel?” 

Answer in our next SD.

5/4/2016 5:01 PM

 

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