SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/17/2017
10:17 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-4 “The Request for Spiritual
Protection”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
17:11b-16
Message of the
verses: “Holy Father, keep them in
Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We
are. 12 "While I was with them, I
was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and
not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would
be fulfilled. 13 “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. 14 “I have given them Your word; and the
world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of
the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them
from the evil one. 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world.”
We are still looking at the joy that the Lord was going
to give to His disciples, and we also can be assured that this same joy is
given to all believers. Notice the
highlighted words in verse 13 stating that it is a personal pronoun “My joy,”
which indicates that this was not just any kind of arbitrary happiness, but
this was His joy “both that which was based in Him, and which He Himself
experienced” as John MacArthur writes.
This causes me to think of the kind of joy that our Lord has, even when
He is about to go to the cross. “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).” This is hard for us humans to understand, but
Jesus knew what the outcome of His death would bring and therefore was desirous
to go through what He went through on the cross with joy. MacArthur adds “joy that was not founded on
immediate circumstances but on the eternal purposes of God. It was joy that came not from momentary
happiness, but from the knowing that the Father was pleased with His perfect
obedience (cf. 2 Cor. 4:17-18). ‘17 For
momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far
beyond all comparison, 18 while we look
not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the
things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are
eternal.’ The disciples would share in
that joy by experiencing the eternal life that Jesus made possible through His
death (cf. 16:22; 17:3, 18). All
believers, in the generations that have followed the eleven, have shared in
that same joy.”
Now we want to move onto the first part of verse fourteen
which speaks of the Words that Jesus spoke to His disciples, and we know that
because of who Jesus is that these Words were divine Words. We have recorded in the Word of God, God’s
Words, and the problem for those in the world is that they have rejected them, “"You
do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent
(John 5:38).” Now if we go back and look
at the first chapter of the book of Hebrews we see that the writer of Hebrews
gives us a brief history of how God spoke to His people. “1 God, after He spoke long ago to the
fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days
has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom
also He made the world.” In earlier days
God spoke through people like Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs, and then
when Moses came along God used Moses to speak to His people. The judges and the prophets came along for
God to use to speak to His people, and the prophets did not just talk about
future things, although some surely did, but the prophets also taught. If we would take the time to look at the 7th
chapter of the book of Acts we would see that Stephen gave a more detailed
history of the way God spoke to His people and also spoke about how they
rejected the words of the prophets, and they killed them because they did not
want to follow the things that they were teaching them that came from the
Lord. We have the same problems today
and it will only get worse as many, many people in the future are going to give
up their lives for the cause of Christ as we have seen in our study of the book
of Revelation. God’s Word will convict
some, and many will hate what it says because as James says it is like looking
into a mirror and some people do not like what they see when they look into the
mirror. I have to keep going back to
John 3:36 as John the Baptist said “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God
remains on him (ESV).”
That verse, John 3:36 also have good news in it for we
see that those who accept the Words of Jesus will have eternal life. Eleven of the twelve disciples accepted the
Words of Jesus and so with that said we can move on. “8 for the words which You gave Me I have
given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth
from You, and they believed that You sent Me (John 17:8).” This verse shows us that the disciples have
accepted and believed the words of Jesus.
Now because they did believe Jesus goes on to say that the world will
hate them. Once Jesus was ascended back
into heaven the only way that the world can hate Him is to hate those who truly
follow Him, and that makes up all true believers. Jesus goes on to tell them that just like He
is not of the world, neither are they of the world, that is this world system
headed up by Satan. Think a moment about
this: “For our citizenship is in heaven,
from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (Phil.
3:20).”
Jesus goes on to pray to His Father that He did not want
them to be taken out of the world.
Believers are in the world but not of the world. As believers we are to triumph over the world
“"These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In
the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33).” James tells us that we are not to have
friendship with the world “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship
with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend
of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).” John later on writes “15 Do not love the
world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17
The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of
God lives forever (1 John 2:15-17).”
I remember a sermon that Billy Graham preached in the
western part of Canada, in a large city but I don’t remember the name of
it. He spoke of how hard it was in those
days, and that was maybe 30 years ago for believers to live in the world
because of all of the temptations that face them, and it is much worse today as
we are bombarded with all kinds of trash from the world system. The truth is that Jesus has left us in the
world, not to get friendly with the world, but to witness to those who are in
the world. I don’t want to go down a
rabbit trail, but I have to say that today many churches are trying to sink
down doing the things of the world in order to attract people out of the
world. I left a church that I had been a
part of for over 32 years because that is what they were trying to do. We are to be a peculiar people, that is
different from the world system in order to attract those in the world who are
looking for something different and as we look around today we find that is
difficult to do, but we must remember that we are not citizens of this world
but aliens who look forward to go to our heavenly home and it should be are
desire to take many people with us as we reach them through the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
We will have to do one shorter SD on this section which I
plan to do tomorrow, Lord willing.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Remember what
James said about not being too friendly with this world system.
My Steps of Faith for Today: This comes from my earlier devotions from
John MacArthur’s Devotional Bible. “Obedience
is another way to hallow God’s name.
Your theology might be flawless, and you may be constantly aware of His presence,
but if you disobey Him, you dishonor Him.
Jesus said, ‘Let your light shine before others, so that they may see
your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.’ (Matt. 5:16).”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The temple” (2 Kings 12:4-5).
Today’s Bible
question: “What was going on at the home
of Mary the mother of John Mark while Peter was in prison?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/17/2017 11:23 AM
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