SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/25/2017
6:46 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 The Message
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 1:1-2
Message of the
verses: “1 The first account I
composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up to heaven,
after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had
chosen.”
In today’s SD we will actually begin to look at these
verses as in our previous three that was not the case as it was kind of an
introduction to them. We have just
finished looking at the book of John for 20 months and we learned many things
from that wonderful gospel book, and one of them was from the teaching of our
Lord Jesus Christ while on earth. After
His resurrection from the dead Jesus continued to teach the essential realities
of His kingdom “until the day when He was taken up,” which references His ascension
back to heaven where He came from. The
day Jesus ascended into heaven was the end of His earthly ministry and the
beginning of His High Priestly ministry from heaven. As I think about Jesus ascension into heaven
and how His disciples reacted to it, and we will look at it in more detail
later on from the first chapter of Acts, I think that this easier on them than
when He went to the cross.
John MacArthur writes about this day: “As He had predicted, Jesus was about to
ascend to the Father…During His ministry, He had ‘given orders’ to the apostles
‘by the Holy Spirit,’ who was both the source and the power of His ministry…
Jesus’ ministry in the Spirit’s power demonstrated the pattern for
believers. They, like the apostles, also
are to obey Him (cf. Matt. 28:19-20).
The Holy Spirit is the source of power for believers’ ministry and
enables them to obey their Lord’s teaching.
“The verb entello
(‘given orders’) signals a command (cf. Matt. 17:19), emphasizing the force of
the truth. It encompasses a series of
commands to obey God, as well as threats in light of the consequences of
disobedience.”
As we looked at the book of John we learned that Jesus
spent many hours teaching and preaching to the crowds, but His primary and His
constant learners were “the apostles whom He had chosen.” I have mentioned that I am teaching through
the 17th chapter of the gospel of John in Sunday school, a chapter
we looked at from late February through early April, and in this chapter, a
large portion of it is Jesus praying for His disciples, and in this prayer for
them He was praying for their safety while He went to the cross along with the
effectiveness of their ministry once He went back to heaven. Jesus equipping His disciples to continue on
with His ministry while He went back to heaven was one of the most important
reasons that He came to earth, of course aside from His going to the cross to
pay for our sins, for if that had not happened then the disciples ministry
would not have happened, and our ministry as believers would not have happened
either. It all had to happen in sequence
as seen in the prayer form John 17, first He had to die and be risen from the
dead, then He would go back to heaven to pray for us, and then the disciples
would begin their ministry, the second part of the prayer, and finally our
ministry was given to us once the disciples preached the truth, beginning in
Acts 2. When I say our ministry I am
speaking of the ministry of the first converts of the disciples all the way to
the ministry of the saints throughout church history.
We finish with a couple of quotes, one from John
MacArthur and one from Spurgeon. “The
effectiveness of every believer’s ministry in large measure depends on a clear
and deep knowledge of the Word. No wonder
Spurgeon said,
‘We might preach ‘till our
tongue rotted, ‘till we exhaust our lungs and die—but never a soul would be
converted unless the Holy Spirit uses the Word to convert that soul. So it is blessed to eat into the very heart
of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in scriptural language and your
spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord, so that your blood is Bibline
and the very essence of the Bible flows from you.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Knowing and
understanding the Word of God is one of the most important things that a
believer can do, perhaps the most important of all.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trusting that the Holy Spirit will guide my
thoughts and message that I have for our Sunday school class this morning, that
He will use it to work in the lives of all who He brings there, including mine.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Youthful lust” (2 Timothy
2:22).”
Today’s Bible
question: “Who gave the prophecy ‘He was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities…and with his
stripes we are healed’?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/25/2017 7:22 AM
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