SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/19/2017
10:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Need For The Holy Spirit’s
Revelation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 16:12
Message of the
verses: “12 “I have many more things
to say to you, but you
cannot bear them now.”
This statement in verse twelve is a rather astounding statement
and the reason that I say that is because here we have God incarnate the One
who knows all things, the One who spoke and billions upon billions of stars and
planet came into existence and yet we see that after three years being with His
disciples that He has really not enabled them to understand what was going to
happen to Him and even more as the disciples could not understand the significance
of the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension before it took place. Jesus had not failed them, nor does He fail
us when we cannot understand some Biblical truth that we desire to know. I remember when I was a younger believer that
a man came up to me and said that he wanted to study the book of Romans but the
Lord hand impressed on his heart that it was not His timing for him to study
Romans at this time. I never forgot that
and what I learned from that and also from this verse is that God’s timing was
perfect in all things. Some things we
may not ever know the answer to this side of heaven and that is because God
does not desire to let us know what we want to know for our good and for His
glory, and so we must trust the Lord in His perfect timing as we see in this
verse and also we can look at John 21:25 “25
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were
written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the
books that would be written.”
I was reading from my John MacArthur “Devotional Bible”
the other day and he was writing about our salvation and stated that the most
important thing that our salvation does is to bring glory to the Lord. We might think differently about that and
just like the disciples it may not be our time to understand this truth, but
truth it is. From our perspective we
might think that our salvation is the most important thing that comes from
it. John MacArthur entitles his
devotional for January 18th “Proclaiming God’s Preeminence.” The Scripture is Ephesians 1:12 “We were
predestined ‘so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the
praise of his glory.’” He writes “Our
man-centered culture doesn’t share that perspective. Sadly, its self-seeking and self-glorifying
mentality has crept into the church, and even the gospel itself has been
subjected to its influence.” I would
have to say that a few years ago I would not have been read to hear this truth
and so in God’s timing He waited for me to hear it and believe it and to
understand it, and so with the disciples as we will see here.
We think of the disappointment that Judas had, and that
was the reason that he betrayed Christ was that he wanted to see Jesus destroy
the Romans and set up His kingdom right away, but this was true of all of the
disciples, and yet the eleven waited and would be rewarded for waiting even
though they did not understand it at this time.
An example of there not understand that Jesus would be crucified and then
resurrected is seen as some of the disciples were coming down the mountain
after the transfiguration “9 As they were coming down from the mountain, He
[Jesus] gave them [Peter, James and John] orders not to relate to anyone what
they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead. 10 They seized upon
that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant
(Mark 9:9-10).” Let us look at another
passage from Luke 18:31-34 that also shows they did not understand what was
going to happen:
31 Then
He took the twelve aside and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son
of Man will be accomplished. 32 “For He will be handed over to the Gentiles,
and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, 33 and after they have
scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again." 34
But the disciples
understood none of these things, and the meaning of this statement was hidden from them,
and they did not
comprehend the things that were said.”
Now we know that when the Spirit of
Truth would come upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost that things would
change and they would understand and also proclaim why our Lord had to die, and
why He had to rise from the dead, and also ascend into heaven.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I think
that one of the most important things that I can learn from this verse is to be
patient and not be in a hurry to learn things that God is not ready to teach
me. Another thing I can learn from this
is that when I look at the disciples who at this point did not have the Holy
Spirit’s indwelling that they did not understand truths from the Lord, and yet
I do have the indwelling Holy Spirit and sometimes I fail to learn what He is
teaching me from His Word.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Be ready to
learn, to keep myself clean from sin, so that the Spirit can have His way in my
life, to teach me what He desires to teach me.
Memory
verse for the week: (Romans 6:13) “and
do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of
unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and
your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
Answer
from yesterday’s Bible question: “5
cubits long, 5 cubits wide, and 3 cubits high” (Exodus 38:1-2).
Today’s
Bible question: “Name five orders given
in Ephesians 4, for the perfecting of the saints?”
Answer
in our next SD.
1/19/2017
10:52 AM
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