SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/26/2016 9:35 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 The Savior’s Provision For An Invitation to All
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 12:23-26
Message of the verses: “23 And Jesus answered them, saying,
"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 “Truly, truly, I
say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 “He who loves his life loses it,
and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26 “If
anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be
also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”
We have
been talking about verse twenty-six in our last SD, and will continue to talk
about it here in this SD. What we see in
this verse is that it cost something to follow Jesus Christ, and it is costing
more and more in our country to follow Him because of what is happening in our
government. Now in order to serve Jesus
one must follow Jesus “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in
the same manner as He walked (1 John 2:6).”
MacArthur writes that “true salvation is not only affection but also
direction.”
Jesus
continues in this verse by stating that where He is will be where His servants
will be, and perhaps we can say that when we follow after Jesus in our
Spiritual walk that we will become more like Him, and then when our days are
through we will be with Him. I can’t
help but think of Enoch, as we learn about him in the fifth chapter of the book
of Genesis, and Enoch is also in the blood line of Jesus Christ, any way we
read the following in Genesis 5:24 “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for
God took him.” Now Enoch was walking
with God everyday and I remember one preacher I sat under a long time ago who
said that God said to Enoch as he was walking with God each day that you are
closer to my house so why don’t you just come home with Me, and so God took
Enoch. Enoch’s direction in a spiritual
way was walking with God which is the way our spiritual direction should be.
We read in
John 14:3 that Jesus told His disciples that when He would leave that He would
be preparing a place for them, and that means He is preparing a house for all
of those who belong to Him. I read that
the New Jerusalem is a cube of 1500 miles, and that is half the size of the
United States, but it also goes 1500 miles straight up and that is a lot higher
than any sky scraper ever built, so Jesus is preparing a house for all of His
followers who have been born again into His family.
Now there
is another promise to those who serve Jesus and this promise is an easy one to
overlook, but it is a wonderful promise for we read in the last part of verse
26 “if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” Now I have to say that very early Sunday
morning about four hours after I went to bed I woke up and there have been
times in my life when I know that the Lord wants to talk with me, now I am not
saying that this is an audible message, but it is a heart message, and Sunday
morning was one of those times. I am one
of the prayer leaders for a stewardship program at our church, one of
three. I have a prayer list that I pray
for our pastors on Saturdays and as the Lord was speaking to my heart two items
on that list came to my mind along with this last portion of verse 26. Prayer is difficult work. I heard the story of John Wesley who was
ridding his horse around England preaching to different churches when a man
came up and began to talk to him about prayer.
Wesley told the man that if he would get down on his knees and pray for
five minutes without stopping that he would give him his horse. Just think of that! The man got down on his knees and began to
pray and about halfway through his prayer he looked up at Wesley and asked “Does
the saddle come with it too?” You see
prayer is hard work as Paul writes in Romans 15:30 “Now I urge you, brethren,
by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with
me in your prayers to God for me” The
words “strive with me” is the Greek word “sunagonizomai.” This word is also used in John 18:36 “Jesus
answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this
world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to
the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” The word fighting is the same Greek word and
so prayer is hard work for we have to agonize in our prayers along with fight
in our prayers and so this is what the Lord was speaking to me yesterday
morning. I was also thinking about
another item on my list where I would be praying for our pastor’s visions that
he has for his life, and the life of the church, not visions in a strange way
but visions that he has prayed about and asked the Lord to do. It could be in the church or for something
else the Lord wants him to do, and it is my belief that since I have been
praying about this for over two years that the stewardship program is one of
the things that God wants to be done in our church and so I shared this with
the men who gather to pray before our services on Sunday morning. When the Lord gives you something to say He
wants you to say it. Ok back to this
portion in John 12:16c, and I want you to think about God the Father honoring
those who are believers and following our Lord.
It is a very big deal, believe me it is big.
A few days
after this occurred in the life or our Lord He would hang on a cruel cross and
be separated from His Father for three hours as His Father poured out His wrath
on the One who did not deserve it, as we deserved it, and the sky became black
so no one could see what was going on and after that three hours was done sin
had been paid for, for those who will receive this free gift of salvation, and
once that happens we are to follow our Lord the rest of our lives.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: To receive honor from God seems to me like
something that I could never believe will happen, but that is what Jesus tells
me in this verse.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Continue to go in the
direction of following my Lord each day as best that I can.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Old and New Testament.”
Today’s Bible question:
“Which bird returned to Noah after being sent out of the ark?”
Answer in our next SD.
9/26/2016 10:17 PM
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