SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/20/2016 6:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Intro to John 15:12-16
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 15:12-16
Message of the verses: “12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
13 “Greater love
has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 “You are
My friends if you do what I command you. 15
"No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what
his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have
heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 "You did not choose Me
but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that
your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He
may give to you.”
As we read
through the book of John and also the letters that John writes we find that
John tells it like it is as he always makes a distinction between those who are
lost and those who belong to Jesus Christ, the ones who are saved. This is true of the Bible in other parts too
as the Bible is not grey, but is black or white as Scripture makes a contrast
between those who are saved and those who are lost “"For the Son of Man
has come to seek and to save that which was lost’ (Luke 19:10).” It also tells of those who are with Jesus and
those who are against Him “"He who is not with Me is against Me; and he
who does not gather with Me, scatters (Luke 11:23).” Again it tells of those of the world and
those not of the world “19 "If you
were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the
world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you
(John 15:19).” “15 Do not love the world
nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father
is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the
lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is
from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one
who does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:15-17).” It also makes a distinction of those who are
children of God and those who are children of the Devil as seen in 1 John 3:10 “10 By this the children of God and the children
of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of
God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” One more distinction, those in the kingdom of
God’s beloved Son, and those in the satanic kingdom of darkness as found in
Colossians 1:13 “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred
us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”
John
MacArthur writes “In this passage, Jesus introduces another aspect of this
contrast—between those who are His friends, and those who are friends of the
world. Friendship with Jesus Christ
results in an intimate relationship with God and brings ‘joy inexpressible and
full of glory’ (1 Peter 1:8). On the
other hand, ‘friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of
the world makes himself an enemy of God’ (James 4:4) and is subject to His
wrath (Nah. 1:2).”
In the rest
of this introduction from John MacArthur’s commentary he goes into the
different names that true believers are called and in his most recent sermon,
(last years) he talks mostly about believers being slaves to the Lord,
something we may get into as we work our way through this passage. As I listened to that sermon yesterday I
learned that the word which in the Greek means slaves is found 130 times in the
New Testament, but many of those times it is translated as servant when it
should be translated as slave. The Greek
word for slave is “doulos” and
according to my Greek/English dictionary it is used 120 times in the New
Testament as the word servant. In that
sermon John MacArthur has much to say about why this word is translated servant
as slavery’s connotation is so bad that the translators of all the English
translations of the Bible used the word servant for this Greek word but two
English Translations, and right now I don’t remember their names, but they were
older translations of the English Bible.
I have to say that after listening to this sermon that I was convinced
that since I became a believer that I have thought of myself as a slave of
Christ but really did not understand it until I listened to the sermon. When we look at the life of Jesus Christ we
see that He was a slave to God the Father when He was on the earth “5 Have this
attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He
existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be
grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the
likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians
2:5-8).” The highlighted portion of this
word has the word “bond-servant” in it and the Greek word is doulos, the word
for slave. As stated we may talk more
about this in later Spiritual Diaries, but for now I do find it very
interesting that if Jesus was called a slave of God the Father why it is
strange that we as believers in today’s world would have a problem of being
called a slave of Jesus Christ for after all He bought all who are true
believers out of the slave market of sin to save us and so that did not change
the fact that we are still slaves, but this time slaves of Christ.
MacArthur
writes the following at the end of this introductory portion to show us where
we will be going from here as we study these verses from John 15:12-16: “This brief passage reveals four
characteristics of Jesus’ friends: They
are those who love each other, obey Him, know divine truth, and have been
specially chosen by the Lord Himself.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is so much better for me to be a slave of
Jesus Christ than a slave to sin.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust that I will be a good
slave for the Master today.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:8-9) “8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we
shall also live with Him; 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the
dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Initiated by John Wycliffe; completed by
John Purvey in 1388.”
Today’s Bible question:
“How many pillars were there in the court of the tabernacle?” Hint, look in the 27th chapter of
Exodus.
Answer in our next SD.
12/20/2016 7:26 AM
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