SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/8/2018
10:00 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Peter
was Christ-Exalting
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 9:34-35
Message of the
verses: “34 Peter said to him,
"Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed."
Immediately he got up. 35 And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and
they turned to the Lord.”
I find a statement in the first sentence from John
MacArthur’s commentary that if very in lighting to me as he writes “Those who
would minister effectively for Jesus Christ must seek to exalt Him, not promote
themselves. Peter understood his role
perfectly (cf. Acts 10:25-25). “25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and
fell at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter raised him up, saying, "Stand
up; I too am just a man.’” In the book
of Revelation we will find that something similar happens to John, but in his
case he is the one bowing down to an angle and the angel tells John something
similar to what Peter told Cornelius.
When Peter comes to this man, Aeneas his says “Jesus
Christ heals you,” he does not say I heal you.
When you look at TV evangelists you sometimes, and I am being extremely generous,
think that they are bringing glory to themselves. This is not the case with Peter as Peter knew
who it was that should see the glory for this miracle.
I can think of a couple more miracles which are similar
to this one, and one of them we just looked at in Acts chapter four, and then
the other one was done by Jesus when he was teaching in a house and some men
opened the roof and let a man down through the roof who was on a pallet and Jesus
healed him. There is another one similar
found in John’s gospel when Jesus healed a man who was on a mat beside a pool
and after healing him Jesus told him to take up his mat similar to what Peter
tells this man. It was the Sabbath and
so the Jewish leaders stated that it was not lawful for this man to carry his
mat. I want to look at a couple of
verses that go well with this section. “4
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it
abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the
vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for
apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5).” “11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is
speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is
serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be
glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever
and ever. Amen (1 Peter 4:11).”
Now the result of this miracle brought many to a saving
knowledge of Jesus Christ as Luke writes “All who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw
him, and they turned to the Lord.” John
MacArthur writes “All may shock the reader, but such was the power and grace of
God through Peter in that area that all believed.” The effects of this miracle traveled to
another town as Luke mentions Sharon heard about this miracle and also came to
know the Lord. John MacArthur writes “The
phrase ‘turned to the Lord’ employs the verb epistrepho ‘to turn around’…which describes salvation as more than
a change of mind; indeed it is a change of life direction. Conversion is an about-face from one belief
and behavior to a completely opposite commitment.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is my desire
to be like a water hose that the water of life flows through. The hose is not nearly as important as the
water that flows through it, but it is necessary to carry the water to where it
needs to go. Jesus told His disciples
that it was necessary that He go away.
Jesus is the second person of the God-head and while on earth He was in
a body, a human body, and not He is in a glorified body. While in the human body He was subject to
only be in one place at a time, and now that He is in a glorified body in
heaven and now that the Holy Spirit fills those in the church there can be more
done than when He was in His human body.
I must always remember to praise the Lord whenever I am producing fruit
through His power.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to work out some of the issues
that I have with the seven churches we are studying in Revelation at this time.
Memory verse: Psalm 143:10 “Teach me to do Your will, For
You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Satan.”
Today’s Bible
question: “How did the Lord lead the
children of Israel when they left Egypt?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/8/2018 10:46 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment