SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/17/2016 10:54 AM
My Worship Time Focus: P T-4 The Blessings of Abiding
Branches
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference:
John 15:2b-5, 7-11
Message of the verses: “every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it
so that it may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word
which I have spoken to you. 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless
you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me
and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing… 7 “If
you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will
be done for you. 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit,
and so prove to be My disciples. 9 "Just
as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you
keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My
Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to
you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Now the
verse that we will begin with this morning is verse 7: “If you abide in Me, and
My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” We
looked at something similar to this when we were studying chapter fourteen and
verses 13-14. I quoted something from
Warren Wiersbe in a prayer guide that I wrote for our churches prayer and
fasting day a few weeks ago on this subject and Dr. Wiersbe had the following
to say: ““The ‘whatsoever’ in John 14:13
is qualified by all that God has revealed in His Word about prayer; likewise,
the ‘anything’ in John 14:14. God is not
giving us carte blanche; ‘in My name’
is the controlling element. To know
God’s name means to know His nature, what He is, and what He wants to do. God answers prayer in order to honor His
name; therefore prayer must be in His will (1 John 5:14-15). The first request in ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ is
‘Hallowed be Thy name’ (Matt. 6:9). Any
request that does not glorify God’s name should not be asked in His name.” John MacArthur had the following to say about
those verses ““First, it means to make requests consistent with God’s will and
the purposes of His kingdom.” Needless
to say there is much in the Word of God that has to say about prayer and how
the Lord will and will not hear or answer our prayers. One of them for me is how they treat their
wives, something Peter brings up. Here
Jesus is saying that we have to abide in Him, so His Word’s will abide in us
(true believers) and then we can ask what we wish of God and He will grant it,
but by doing this we will ask something that is in the will of God because of
our abiding in Him and knowing His Word.
John
MacArthur writes the following about “Words translates the plural form of the
noun rhema, and refers to the
individual utterances of Christ. The
promise of answered prayer comes only to those whose lives are controlled by
the specific commands of God’s Word (cf. Ps. 37:4) ‘4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will
give you the desires of your heart.’ On
the other hand, both Psalm 66:18 and James 4:3 warn that those controlled by
sinful, selfish desires will not have their prayers answered.” “18 If I regard wickedness in my heart, The
Lord will not hear;” “You ask and do not
receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your
pleasures.”
Now we want
to look at verse 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit,
and so prove to be My disciples. We see
that God is glorified by what we have learned from verse seven and also will be
glorified when we bear much fruit which will prove that we are disciples of
Jesus Christ. When we look at the most
important thing in the world that we can do it is to glorify God, that is why
we are here. When we look at Psalm 19 we
see that the stars bring glory to the Lord, and we also know that the animals
and the weather also bring glory to the Lord, remember when Jesus calmed the
storms and they obeyed for they brought glory to the Lord. The only thing that does not always bring
glory to the Lord is men and God created the world to create man to bring glory
to Him, but sin has got in the way, however we can still bring glory to the
Lord in spite of being sinful if we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord
and abide in Him as we are learning today.
Paul wrote in Romans 15:18a “For I will not presume to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me.”
Next we
will look at the promise that those who abide in Jesus will experience His love
as found in verse 9-10 “9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you
will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” The way this is done is answered in verse
ten, which also gives us the example of Jesus following the will of His Father
while on earth.
We have
been looking at this section for a while and I want to conclude it by quoting
the final paragraph from John MacArthur’s commentary on this subject: “The crowing blessing, to which all the rest
contribute, is full and complete joy.
The Lord promised to impart to believers His ‘joy’—the joy that He
shares in intimate fellowship with the Father.
‘These things I have spoke to you,’ Jesus said to the eleven, ‘so that
My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.’ The Lord promised that His own joy will
permeate and control the lives of those who walk in communion with Him. Just a short time later, Jesus reiterated
this promise in His High Priestly Prayer to the Father. ‘But now I come to You; and these things I
speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves’ (John
17:13). Such joy comes only to the
obedient, as David learned to his sorrow.
After his terrible sin with Bathsheba, he cried out, ‘Restore to me the
joy of Your salvation’ (Ps. 51:12). But
the obedient receive ‘joy inexpressible and full of glory’ (1 Peter 1:8).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I learn from this section that I am to obey
the Lord so that I can have the Holy Spirit produce fruit in my life and to
have the joy of the Lord in my life. Let
me share a verse in Hebrews that helps me to understand something about
joy: “1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of
witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin
which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is
set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God
(Heb. 12:1-2).”
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Remember that joy is doing
what the Lord wants me to do, and joy and happiness are not always the same.
Memory verse for the week:
(Romans 6:8) “8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we
shall also live with Him;”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Peter” (Acts 5:29).”
Today’s Bible question:
“Paul was on his way to what city when he came to Appii forum?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/17/2016 12:02 PM
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