SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/5/2016 10:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The Powerful Extent of Christ’s
Love
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 13:36-38
Message of the verses: “36 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are You
going?" Jesus
answered, "Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will
follow later." 37 Peter
said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay
down my life for You." 38 Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly,
truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.”
Now as I
look at these highlighted portions of these verses I can see myself in what
Peter was doing. I can see myself arguing
with the Lord, thinking that I know a better way that what He has planned for
my life, and I can see myself thinking that it would have been better not to
say anything at all which is what Peter did not do and what I should not do
either in a lot of cases.
John
MacArthur begins his commentary on this section by writing “Jesus’ dialogue
with Peter doubly illustrates the extent of Christ’s love, made possible
through His sacrifice on the cross.” Now
as I read this first sentence I was a bit puzzled why he would write something
like then and then he goes on to say “On the one hand, their conversation
demonstrated the eternal significance of Christ’s love—because He guaranteed
the eternal life of His disciples. On
the other hand, it also evidenced the power of Christ’s love, since it would
prove greater than the disloyal cowardice of Peter (and the other disciples).”
In verse 36
we see the question that has been given to Christ three times lately in John’s
gospel, first by the Greeks and then in verse 33 Jesus stated again that He was
going away and so now Peter asked the question “Lord, where are You going?” I surely can understand why Peter asked this
question for it had to be on the minds and hearts of the other believers but
Peter was the one who was a leader among the disciples and the one who would
ask a question like this. From their
theological background they believed that when the Messiah came that He would
set up His kingdom, and in this case get rid of the Roman government which was oppressing
the Jewish people, but this was not the case and they were confused about where
He was going to go. We know the end of
this story and so we may not look at it from their perspective, but perhaps we
should. The disciples surely did not
want Jesus to leave them, but we will find out later that Jesus tells them it
is better for them if He did go away, something that still would be hard for
them to believe.
Now
remember what Jesus told the unbelieving Jews in John 8:21? “"I go away,
and you will seek Me, and
will die in your sin; where
I am going, you cannot come."”
However we see that Jesus says to His disciples in verse 36 “"Where
I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later."” Big difference between what He says to the
unbelieving Jews and the believing disciples.
The disciples had hope, but hopelessness for the unbelieving Jews
One more
quote from MacArthur and then we will look at more of this section in our next
SD. He writes “Though Peter was not
satisfied with the Lord’s answer )as his hasty reply indicates), the power of
Christ’s love is displayed in Jesus’ response.
Because He had set His love upon them, choosing them as His disciples
(cf. John 15:16) and loving them enough to die for them (cf. John 13:1), they
would one day join Him in His heavenly glory (cf. John 14:2). Nothing, not their coming defection and
denial nor even their own future deaths, would be able to separate them from
the love of their Lord. As Paul
explained in Romans 8:38-39 ‘38 For I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor
any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There are many good things that Peter did in
his life even before the Lord was taken up into heaven, but it seems that his
foot in mouth things are what he is remembered for the most, and I can learn
from those things along with the good things that he did, like stepping out of
a boat on a very stormy lake to walk on the water, as he is the only one who
has ever done this other than our Lord.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Think before I speak or act.
Memory verse for the week:
(Romans 6:15) “15What then? Shall
we sin because we are no longer under law but under grace? May it never be!”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Laban” (Genesis 31:49).
Today’s Bible question:
“Name the place in the Land of the Philistines given to David when he
fled from Saul?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/5/2016 11:17 AM
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