SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/18/2016 8:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Spiritual Sight Responds in Faith
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 9:36
Message of the verses: “36 He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that
I may believe in Him?"”
We look
today at our second sub-section under the main section of “Spiritual Sight,”
which as we see only covers one verse from the 9th chapter of John’s
gospel.
Now in
order for this man to answer the question that the Lord gave to him in verse 35
“"Do you believe in the Son of Man?"” in the way that he answers in
verse 36 “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"” his heart had to
be divinely prepared in order for him to believe in Jesus Christ. As I listened to the sermon from the 1970’s
that John MacArthur spoke on this section of John’s gospel he told a story of a
place where he had gone and it seemed to me as I listened to this story that he
changed his mind and went out to the street to begin to talk to people about
the Lord. He came to a man and asked him
if he wanted to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, and to his surprise the man
said that he did, that he had been praying that someone would come to talk to
him about Jesus Christ. Right away the
man accepted the forgiveness that Christ had to offer him as he became a
born-again believer in Jesus Christ.
This came as a great surprise, and the point of the story is that this
man’s heart, like the former blind beggar’s heart was divinely prepared to
receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
These are wonderful experience, both for the person giving out the
gospel message, and also for the one who receives Christ as Savior and Lord.
As we
looked at the outline from Warren Wiersbe’s commentary in an earlier SD we
found that this former blind man went from Jesus Christ being “the man called
Jesus” to “a man of God” to “a prophet” and now “The Son of God.” I like the
title that Dr. Wiersbe gives for this 9th chapter of John in his
commentary “The Blind Man Calls Their Bluff.”
Now as we
look at this verse we see that this man did not really realize that it was
Jesus who was the Son of Man, a messianic title we mentioned in our last SD, so
he asks Jesus “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” He must have felt that Jesus could be the One
who could direct him to the Son of Man so he could believe in Him. MacArthur writes “His trust illustrates the
truth that though divinely initiated; salvation is never apart from a faith
response. At the outset of His public
ministry Jesus declared it necessary for lost sinners to ‘repent and believe in
the gospel (Mark 1:15). In the prologue
to his gospel John wrote, ‘But as many as received Him, to them He gave the
right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name’
(1:12). The most familiar verse in the
New Testament promises ‘that whoever believes in [Jesus] shall not perish, but
have eternal life’ (John 3:16; cf. vv. 15, 36; 5:25). ‘For this is the will of My Father,’ Jesus
said, ‘that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal
life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day’ (6:40). Later in the same discourse He solemnly
affirmed, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life’
(6:47). The apostle John wrote his
gospel ‘so that [people] may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing [they] may have life in His name’ (20:31).” These kind of statements are seen in other
parts of the New Testament, places like when Peter speaks to Cornelius and the
other Gentiles in his house as seen in Acts 10:43. In Acts 16:30-31 the Philippian jailor as
Paul and Silas “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered him “"Believe
in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’” They were saying to him that if he and also
his household would believe they all would be saved, which is what happened as
we can believe that their hearts were divinely prepared too. Let us look at what Paul wrote to the Roman
believers in Romans 10:9-10 “9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as
Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and
with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
John
MacArthur writes “Acts 13:48 sums up the interplay of divine sovereignty and
human responsibility in salvation ‘When the Gentiles heard this, they began
rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life
believed.’ In other words, God sovereignty
chose those who would be empowered, awakened, and enable to respond in faith
(cf. Eph. 2:8-9).” “8 For by grace you have been saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works,
so that no one may boast.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is wonderful to review how the Lord save me
as I look at these verses I realize that my heart was divinely prepared to hear
the message of salvation, so that I surrendered to Jesus Christ on the January
day in 1974 in Casselberry Florida.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord that these
Spiritual Diaries that I write will be used by the Holy Spirit to called those
whom God chose in eternity past, whose hearts are divinely prepared to accept
the salvation that only the Lord Jesus Christ can give them.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:1-4) “1. What shall we
say then? Are we to continue in sin so
that grace may increase? 2. May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in
it? 3.
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus have been baptized into His death.
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Edifies, exhorts, comforts” (1 Corinthians
14:3).
Today’s Bible question:
“In the parable of the lost sheep, how many sheep did the man have?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/18/2016 9:08 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment