SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/24/2017
10:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“From Sorrow To Joy”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
16:16-24
Message of the
verses: “16 "A little while,
and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see
Me." 17 Some of His disciples then said to one another, "What is this
thing He is telling us, ’A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a
little while, and you will see Me’; and, ’because I go to the Father’?" 18
So they were saying, "What is this that He says, ’A little while’? We do
not know what He is talking about." 19 Jesus knew that they wished to
question Him, and He said to them, "Are you deliberating together about
this, that I said, ’A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little
while, and you will see Me’? 20
"Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the
world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy. 21
"Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but
when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because
of the joy that a child has been born into the world. 22 “Therefore you too
have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no
one will take your joy away from you. 23
"In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say
to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. 24
“Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so
that your joy may be made full.”
This Spiritual Diary is an introduction to John 16:16-24
and as we see in the focus part of the SD that we will be looking at sorrow
turning into joy.
Now we have been talking about at times how the Lord’s
disciples have not understood what Jesus was telling them about how He was
going to go to Jerusalem where He would be arrested and then beaten and finally
crucified. I think that there were at
least a couple of reasons why they did not understand this. First they had not received the Holy Spirit
which could only be given to them after Christ was resurrected and then
ascended back into heaven. There is
another reason and that is because they were selfish, they were only thinking
about themselves, not realizing what Christ was going to do was for not only
them but for all who would be saved through His work on the cross. Jesus was going to go back to heaven and have
the glory that He had before He left heaven to come to suffer and die for the
sins of the world and He was looking forward to that very much.
Let us talk a little bit about hope. Now I have mentioned that many times when we
see the word “hope” in the Word of God that it is a noun and not a verb. I hope it rains today is hope being used in
verb form. “Titus 2:13 looking for the
blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ
Jesus,” and this verse from Paul’s letter to Titus we see hope used in the form
of a noun, for this is something certain to happen.
I want to go back and talk about something that I learned
when I began to study the book of Revelation a little over two years ago. Times were very difficult for the church
during that time of history and I suppose that many people were actually like
those that the author of Hebrews were writing to, that is they were ready to
give up their faith in the Lord.
Sometime around 90 AD the Apostle John received a vision from the Lord
Jesus Christ showing him what was going to take place in the future and unlike
the visions that Daniel received John was told to let people know what the Lord
was going to do in the future. We see in
that book hope, hope that when the church age is complete that we all believers
who were a part of it would go to be with the Lord in the Rapture of the
church, hope. We see in that book that
there will be a period of tribulation that will take place which will be that
the Lord will once again deal with the nation of Israel to purify it and to
save many through the preaching of the 144,000 and the two witnesses and even
though this will be the worst time for humans to be alive ever on planet earth
there is still hope that it will all end seven years after the antichrist signs
a treaty with Israel, for Jesus will return after those seven years and that
will bring hope to believers during that time.
The book goes on to talk about the promised kingdom promised to Israel
with their Messiah reigning and ruling from Jerusalem for 1000 years and this
brings hope. Next we see that after this
that the earth will be uncreated as Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 3:10-12 and
replaced with an new heaven, new earth and a new Jerusalem as all saved
believers from Adam to the last one saved during the Millennial kingdom will be
with the Lord there forever and that brings hope, a great hope to all who are
saved. The book of Revelation has
brought hope to believers ever since it was written some 1900 + years ago.
In our verses we will be looking at over the next several
days we will also see hope as we see that the disciples sorrow will soon be
turned into joy. I have read that there
was a man who did a planned fast for 90 days, only living on water and he did
this for the hope of having his body restored to good health. We can live without water for three days, and
food for much longer than that, but we have to have hope to bring meaning to
our lives and the hope of the believer is the best kind of hope as we know that
someday we will be with the Lord forever.
John MacArthur concludes his introduction from these
verses by writing “Though they had heard His repeated predictions (of both His
death and resurrection), the disciples were not read when the moment for Christ’s
passion actually came. Thus, as that
fateful evening drew to a close, Jesus once again spoke words of comfort to the
disciples. He reassured them that their
sorrow would be short-lived, predicting that they would soon see Him
again. When they reacted to that prediction with
uncomprehending perplexity,
Jesus illustrated His point with a parable. Then Jesus
closed the section by promising
the disciples fullness of joy.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I can’t imagine
what my life would be without the hope that is found in the Word of God that someday
I will be with the Lord serving Him for eternity.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will be with my wife in a
special way to prepare her for the minor surgery that she will have in the
morning.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Obed” (Ruth 4:13-17).
Today’s Bible
question: “In what language was the Old
Testament primarily written?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/24/2017 11:23 AM
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