SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/27/2017
12:41 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Representation of the True Unity”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
17:21b-23a
Message of the
verses: “even as You, Father, are in
Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe
that You sent Me. 22 “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them,
that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they
may be perfected in unity,”
“The unique intra-Trinitarian relationship of Jesus and
the Father forms the pattern for the unity of believers in the church. This prayer reveals five features of that
unity the church imitates.” (John
MacArthur)
We begin this SD by looking at the second feature which
is “the Father and the Son are united in mission.” The common goal spoke of here is the
salvation of lost sinners and also granting them eternal life, and if we go
back to verses 2-4 and 6 we will see that Christ makes this clear: “2 Even as You gave Him authority over all
flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 “This
is eternal life, that they
may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4
“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have
given Me to do. 6 "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me
out of the world; they
were Yours and You
gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”
I have mentioned this earlier in other Spiritual Diaries
that God the Father, in eternity past chose a love gift for His Son that He
would give to Him, and that love gift is those whom He chose for
salvation. Jesus would in turn come to
come to earth to pay the price for their salvation and so we see in verse six “they
were Yours and You gave them to Me,” so we see here the mission that the Father
and Son had for our salvation. I want to
go back sometime and look at a sermon from John MacArthur he preached on the
book of Revelation where he taught about how the Jewish wedding ceremony runs parallel
with God and His Son in eternity past, along with the Son coming to earth to
pay the bridal price for the bride and then coming again to consummate the
wedding as seen in a picture in Matthew 25.
Eternity in the New Jerusalem also has to do with this ceremony.
Now we as believers in the NT age are sent out by the Son
to evangelize those in the world in order to have the Holy Spirit give an
effectual call to those whom the Father chose in eternity past, as this is our
part as Jesus ways “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into
the world (Verse 18).” Matthew 28:19-20
(The great commission) also goes along with this “19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all
that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the
age."”
Next we look at feature number three “The Father and the
Son are united in truth,” ‘The words which you gave Me, I have given to them”
as seen in verse 8 and verse 14 we see that Jesus adds “I have given them Your
word.” It was earlier in that evening
that Jesus told His disciples “The words that I say to you I do not speak on My
own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works (John 14:10).”
MacArthur writes “The church is also unified in its
commitment to proclaiming the singular truth of God’s Word. In Romans 15:5-6 Paul prayed ‘5 Now may the
God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind
with one another according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one accord you may
with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Cf. Acts 2:42; 46; Phil. 1:27) Far from dividing the church, a commitment to
proclaiming sound doctrine is what defines it.”
We will look at the last two features in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “John the Baptist” (John
3:30).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where did Abraham come from originally?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/27/2017 1:09 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment