SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/30/2016
11:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
World Hates Believers Because it Does Not Know God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
15:21-25
Message of the
verses: “21 "But all these
things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
22 "If I had not come and spoken to
them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 “He
who hates Me hates My Father also. 24
"If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they
would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as
well. 25 “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their
Law, ’THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’”
To begin with this section will take us a few days to get
through, so we will get started on it today to see how far we can get.
We can begin by looking at the word things which speaks
of what is going to happen to Christ and to His followers, and they are not
good at all. Perhaps people do things to
the followers of Jesus Christ because they hate Him more than they hate His followers;
they do it for His “name sake.” Let us
look at one of the Beatitudes Jesus spoke in Matthew 5:11 “"Blessed are
you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil
against you because of Me.” I want to point out something that caught my
attention as I was listening to John chapter fifteen this morning where Jesus
spoke about the love that the Father had for Him, and the fact that He has the
same kind of love for His followers. The
thought that came to my mind was that hours after this was spoken by Jesus He
was hanging on the cross having His Father’s wrath poured out on Him for our
sins. Jesus says the following in what
we call “The Olivet Discourse:” “"Then they will deliver you to
tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of
My name.” Now I believe that this
prophecy speaks mainly of the tribulation period, but these things have been
happening to His followers since His resurrection. Again we look at the fact that Jesus loves us
like His Father loves Him. My conclusion
is that I absolutely believe that Jesus loves me as His Father loves Him, but I
confess that I don’t know all about this kind of love, but I do believe that
even when a believer dies for the cause of Christ that they are surely not out
of the love that Christ has for them, for after all they will immediately be
with the Lord. Let us look at another
verse the Jesus spoke from heaven to Ananias about what would happen to Saul of
Tarsus: “for I will show him how much he
must suffer for My name’s sake."”
Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:14 “If you are reviled for the name of Christ,
you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” Now as we look throughout the New Testament
we will see that suffering for the cause of Christ is a major theme.
Now as we move to the end of verse twenty-one we see “they do not know the One who
sent Me.” There are many religions in this world that
do not believe in the trinity, among them are the Jewish religion, and the
Muslim religion as they believe in god, but do not believe in Jesus Christ as
being God come in the Flesh with the same attributes that God the Father and the
Holy Spirit have. With this said we can
understand what Jesus said “they do not know the One who sent Me. They think that they know the One who Sent
Jesus and they also think that because of their hatred of Jesus Christ that
they are actually worshiping God. Let us
look at a couple of verses that will help us out: “Romans 8:7a ‘the mind set on the flesh is
hostile toward God.’” Verse eight says “and
those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Ephesians 2:1 “And you were dead in [their] trespasses and sins”
Colossians 1:21 says that they are “alienated and hostile in mind,” and are “darkened
in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance
that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18). What we are really saying is that all people
are sinners by nature as all of us are born into a state of rebellion against
God. Until or if a person becomes
born-again they do what Romans 1:18 says “For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” It is easy to see why people who do not know
the Lord, who have not been born from above can think the way they think, that they
do not know about the One who sent Christ to earth to die for them. It takes the miracle of the new birth to be
able to understand this truth. We will
begin looking at verse 22 in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: “Jesus love me
this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust things that are true in the Word of God
even though I don’t fully understand all of it at this time remembering that “it
will be worth it all when we see Jesus.”
Memory verse for the
week: (Romans 6:10): “For the death that He died, He died to sin once
for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Seven” (Luke 20:29-31).”
Today’s Bible
question: “What statement did Peter make
to Jesus after he caught the fish?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/30/2016 11:52 AM
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