SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/15/2016 10:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Comfort Comes From Trusting Christ’s Power
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 14:12
Message of the verses: “12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who
believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I
go to the Father.”
We have
seen the words “Truly, Truly” before in John’s gospel spoken by our Lord and by
using these words He is making a point that no one should miss. Now as we look at this verse we see an
astonishing promise from the lips of our Lord, a promise that we have to
understand in order for it to be fulfilled.
Now this promise was given to His disciples and is also for all who are
born-again believers too.
Jesus is
saying that the works that He does, those who are believers in Him will also
do, and not only will they be able to do them but they will do them in greater
numbers. When Jesus went to the Father
at His ascension into heaven He left behind eleven believers that were His
disciples, and once the Holy Spirit came upon them as seen in Acts chapter two
they began to do the very works that Jesus did while on earth and because they
were eleven of them there were more works done just because they were greater
in number. MacArthur writes “The
disciples would indeed perform miraculous works, as Jesus had (cf. Acts
5:12-16; Heb. 2:3-4). But those physical
miracles were not primarily what Jesus had in mind, since the apostles did not
do more powerful miracles than He had.
When the Lord spoke of His followers performing greater works, He was
referring to the extent of the spiritual miracle of salvation. Jesus never preached outside of Palestine,
yet His followers would spread the gospel throughout the world. Jesus had only limited outreach to Gentiles
(cf. Mark 7:26ff), but the disciples (particularly Peter and later Paul) would
reach the Gentile world with the gospel.
The number of believers in Christ would also grow far beyond the
hundreds (Acts. 1:15; 1 Cor. 15:6) that were numbered during His lifetime.”
This should
have, and indeed did, comfort the disciples later on as we look through the
book of acts, but at this time when they knew for sure that they were not able
to reach out and touch Him and learn from Him it was not comforting to
them. This was a period of transition
for them, and the one thing that was greatly needed in their spiritual lives,
and also in all believers’ spiritual life is faith. As I said they could not reach out and touch
Jesus anymore and would have to rely on faith through the power of the Holy
Spirit and through eventually the Word of God to give them direction, something
that we as believers have to do today.
None of us have ever seen Jesus face to face, but we can see Jesus in
His Word and His Word is one of the, if not the most important thing we have in
our possession today. Now think for a
moment of those who do not have the Word of God in their language. Our church just concluded a missions
conference where we had a number of people come who were Bible translators. They had some heartwarming stories to tell. We learned that there are half a billion
people groups who do not have the Word of God in their language. We also learned, and this is most important,
that they see the light at the end of the tunnel, as they stated that in their
life time they believe that all people groups will have the Word of God in
their language. I mention this for a
couple of reasons, and one of them is that it goes well with our subject and
verse today, and also I think that it also goes along with prophecy as we are
told in the Word that this will happen and perhaps when this does that the Lord
Jesus Christ will return for His bride.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful that I can be a part of getting
the Word of God around the world, praying everyday that God will use my
Spiritual Diaries to lead people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and for
growth of believer, spiritual revival too, praying that the Holy Spirit will
continue to take these SD’s around the world to be used by Him for the glory of
Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to use these
Spiritual Diaries to bring glory to His name throughout the earth.
Memory verse for the week (Romans 6:16) “16 Do you not know
that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are
slaves of the one whom you obey, either sin resulting to death, or of obedience
resulting in righteousness.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “The separation of the body and the soul”
(Luke 12:20). “"But God said to
him, ’You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have
prepared?’”
Today’s Bible question:
“After which plague did Pharaoh indicate that Moses would see his face
no more?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/15/2016 11:36 AM
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