SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/27/2017
10:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 The
Might
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Acts 1:4-5, 8a
Message of the
verses: “4 Gathering them together, He commanded them
not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised,
"Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized
with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 8 but you will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you;”
Now that the apostles have received the message from the
Lord they may have been tempted to set out on their own to begin to spread the
message, but the Lord tells them that they should “not to leave Jerusalem.” Let us look at a similar verse from Luke
24:49 “49 "And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon
you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on
high." Jesus tells them to wait in
the city of Jerusalem and that waiting things is difficult for some people, me
included. I suppose that being a male I
want to go out and solve problems right away.
I suppose that the Lord has been working in my heart about waiting for
Him, and also to make sure that what I am doing is in His will, what He wants
me to do to bring glory to His name.
When one goes out and does things on their own they become proud, and
pride is a great sin before the Lord. If
one can do things on their own without the help and strength and “might” of the
Holy Spirit of God then they will become proud, but as I have mentioned in
earlier Spiritual Diaries believers are like a hose that the water flows
through. When you water your flowers it
is all about the water getting to the flowers to make them grow that counts,
not really about the hose that the water flows through. We have to be willing hoses that allow the “spiritual
water flow through” in order to bring glory to the Lord. John MacArthur writes the following “To the
apostles, who were no doubt fired with enthusiasm and eager to begin, that must
have seemed a strange command. Yet, it
illustrates an important point: All the
preparation and training that knowledge and experience can bring are useless
without the proper might. Power had to
accompany truth.”
Next we look at the phrase “to wait for what the Father
had promised.” We mentioned that the
apostles were no doubt motivated but they also need to be supernaturally
empowered for their mission which is what our quote is speaking about “what the
Father had promised.” The promise that
Jesus is talking about has been seen in different places in the gospels and
that is the promise of the Holy Spirit.
We have talked about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and
how it was different in different dispensations as in the Old Testament the
Spirit could leave a person like He left Soul and then in the verses that
follow we read that the Holy Spirit came upon David. After his sin with Bathsheba and her husband
David prays in Psalm 51:11 “Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not
take Your Holy Spirit from me.” In the
New Testament we learn that once a person become a born-again believer that the
Holy Spirit comes into their life and there are different functions that the
Spirit does in the life of a believer beginning with giving that person an effectual
call in order for them to become a believer.
Paul tells us that we are to be constantly filled with the Holy
Spirit. The promise of the work of the
Holy Spirit was given in the Old Testament “25 "Then I will sprinkle clean
water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your
filthiness and from all your idols. 26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your
flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to
walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances (Ezekiel
36:25-27).” MacArthur adds “There was to
come a fullness of the Spirit in some way unique to the New Covenant and for
all believers. But there was also a
special anointing for the apostles.” The
apostles were the first to receive this anointing from the Holy Spirit and it
was special for them, but all believers receive the Holy Spirit.
We can compare what happened to Jesus after His baptism
where we learned that the Holy Spirit came upon Him as “heaven opened, and the
Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove (Luke 3:21-22).” Notice it says like a dove a simile as the
Holy Spirit came upon our Lord in a similar way that a dove flutters down to
land, very slowly. Then in Luke chapter
4:1 we read “Jesus, full
of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the
Spirit in the wilderness.” Next we read
from Luke while Jesus was teaching in the Nazareth synagogue “18 “THE SPIRIT OF
THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR.
HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO
THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, 19 TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE
YEAR OF THE LORD."” When you see
all caps in the NASB it is because it is a quote from the Old Testament. One more quote from the book of Luke that has
to do with the suggestion that the Lord’s healing power came from the Holy
Spirit “17 One day He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers
of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea
and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform
healing (Luke 5:17).” Another reason we
believe that it was through the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus did His
miracles had to do with what we call the unpardonable sin where the Pharisees
said that Jesus was doing miracles in the power of Satan, and Jesus then says
to them: “"Therefore I say to you,
any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the
Spirit shall not be forgiven (Matthew 12:31).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Paul speaking of
the Holy Spirit’s power writes “Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians
5:19).” I never want to do that.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Keep my life clean so that the Holy Spirit
can work through me to bring glory to my Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Abraham” (Genesis 22:8).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where did Micah say the
Messiah would be born?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/27/2017 11:09 AM
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