SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/18/2017
11:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-5 “The
Request for Spiritual Protection”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
17:11b-16
Message of the
verses: “Holy Father, keep the men
you gave me by your power that they may be one, as we are one. 12 As long as I
was with them, I kept them by the power that you gave me; I guarded them, and
not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction—that the scripture
might come true. 13 “And now I come to you and I say these things in the world
that these men may find my joy completed in themselves. 14 I have given them
your word, and the world has hated them, for they are no more sons of the world
than I am. 15 I am not praying that you will take them out of the world but
that you will keep them from the evil one. 16 They are no more the sons of the
world than I am— (Phillips).”
I know that this section has taken us a while to go
through, but I hope that we are learning from it and that we will all be better
equipped to walk with our Lord because of what we are learning. I still think a lot about how I would have
been feeling if I were one of Jesus disciples, not that I desire to have been
one of them because it was the Lord who chose them. However as I think of what they were going
through I realize that it had to be so very difficult for them to realize that
the One who loved them so much and had taken care of them and had taught them
for the last three years was now going to leave them and they must have all
felt that there would be an emptiness in their lives that could never be filled
once He was gone. I know that the Holy
Spirit would fill that emptiness in a similar way that Jesus had filled it, but
at this time in their lives it had to be difficult to say the least.
Jesus did not ask the Father to take them out of the
world, and neither does He take believers out of the world today once they are
saved. I know that this would be the
easiest thing if He chose to do that but as believers in Jesus Christ we have
the opportunity to grow up in the Lord and we also have the opportunity to do
the best thing that we can do and that is to led someone to a saving faith in
Jesus Christ, that is a feeling that will never leave you. I once heard a story told by Charles
Swindoll, who is a great story teller.
He speaks of an older lady who had led many people to the Lord, and this
lady was in her doctor’s office and she was talking to another patient there
about their need to accept Christ as their Savior and it so happened that it
was her turn to go in and see the doctor.
The doctor realized that it was her turn to see him as the nurse told
him but he realized what she was doing and so he told the nurse that she was
about to give birth. Not sure what the
nurse thought about that, but my point and the point of the story is that it is
the most wonderful thing in this world to do is to be with someone who has just
accepted Christ and so if God would take us out of the world once we have
received Christ we would miss that along with other things. Our rewards in heaven depend on how we have
lived the Christian life here on earth so we would miss that too if we were
taken out of the world at the moment of salvation.
Jesus prays that God will keep them from the evil one in
verse fifteen, and of course that speaks of Satan. MacArthur writes “There is nothing that Satan
(the prince of this world—Eph. 2:22) would like better than to destroy saving
faith; to snatch a soul from the safety of Christ’s and the Father’s hand
(10:28-29) would be his desire. He tried
to destroy Job’s faith, but after all the calamities that Satan brought upon
him, Job’s response showed that the faith God gives cannot be destroyed. It is by divine power and enduring faith:
‘1 Then Job answered the
LORD and said, 2 “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of
Yours can be thwarted. 3 ’Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
"Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful
for me, which I did not know." 4 ’Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask
You, and You instruct me.’ 5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You; 6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.’’
Job is not the only one is
Scripture that Satan tried to destroy for we know that in the 13th
chapter of John that Peter told Jesus that he was ready to die for Him, and yet
in Luke’s account we read that Jesus told Peter that Satan had asked to be able
to sift Peter like wheat, which he did, for once again if we got back to John’s
account in the last chapter we see Peter was ready to go back to fishing when
he saw the risen Lord on the shore and jumped out of the boat and ran to
Him. Jesus asked Peter three times if he
loved Him, three times, the same amount of times that Peter denied Him and so
Peter would go on and be the one who preached the first sermon that began the
church and lived for the Lord the rest of his life until he was crucified for the
cause of Christ. I have to point out
that once wheat is sifted that the chaff blows away and all that is left if the
wheat.
“They are no more the sons of the world than I am—
(Phillips).” We see here that Jesus
concluded His first request for the disciples with these words found in verse 16. I mentioned the way Peter would have his life
ended similar to most all of the apostles and so as we look at verse sixteen we
can see that on the one hand this means that they would face persecution that
came from the world for “they would be treated by unbelievers just as Christ
Himself was treated. Yet on the other hand, it also meant they would enjoy the
protection of the Father, for they would likewise be treated by the Father in
the same manner as Christ. Verse 16 is
therefore more than just a restatement of verse 14. It is a reiteration by the Son, before the
Father, of the solidarity that those whom He was leaving in the world shared
with Him.” (John MacArthur)
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As I look around
what is going on in our country and for that matter in the world, I see a
divided world a world that seems to me is becoming divided in what they think
about Jesus Christ, and it is coming to the point where much violence is coming
on those who name the name of Christ. We
have seen people in our country lose their business for the stand that they
take for Christ and as the days grow closer to what we as believers know as the
Tribulation Period these things will continue to grow. I know that the Bible teaches us that the
Church will be gathered together in the air by the Lord before the Tribulation
begins, but I believe we are seeing a prelude to what will happen in the
Tribulation once the Church is gone and so we all need to continue to trust the
Lord to guide us in what He wants us to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Lord to guide me in
what He wants me to do for the cause of Christ.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The people were praying for
Peter’s release” (Acts 12:12).
Today’s Bible question “Who
spoke, ‘Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel?’”
Answer in our next SD.
3/18/2017 12:13 PM
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