SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/15/2018
11:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Sovereign Preparation
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts10-1-8
Message of the
verses: “1 Now there was a man at
Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,
2 a devout man and one who feared God
with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to
God continually. 3 About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision
an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, "Cornelius!" 4
And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, "What is it,
Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and alms have ascended as a
memorial before God. 5 “Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named
Simon, who is also called Peter; 6 he is staying with a tanner named Simon,
whose house is by the sea." 7 When the angel who was speaking to him had
left, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were
his personal attendants, 8 and after he had explained everything to them, he
sent them to Joppa.”
Before we begin looking at these eight verses I want to
say that the reason there was no SD from yesterday was because I have been
under the weather, and for the first time in I don’t know how long was unable
to do the things in my devotions that I usually do. Things are a bit better this morning and I
have an appointment to go to the doctors at 1:00PM to hopefully get some
help. Another thing that I want to
mention is that these verses we are looking at this morning are from a main
point entitled “Sovereign Preparation.” Which covers the first twenty verses of
Acts 10, and John MacArthur writes “The momentous events of Gentile inclusion
in the church and Cornelius’s salvation required sovereign preparation. Both the convert, Cornelius, and the
preacher, Peter, received visions from God preparing them for what was to
follow.”
I have written many times in different SD’s that after
Adam and Eve fell into sin that all of their offspring, with the exception of
Jesus Christ who was born of a virgin are born spiritually dead, which means
that the only way for a person to become a believer is to have God through His
Holy Spirit do a work in their life. We
see that Cornelius had been doing good things as he was a devout man, and yet
there still had to be a vision come into his mind in order from him to
understand the truth of how a person can be saved.
We see that not only was Cornelius was a good soldier,
but he was a good man who feared God along with all of his household, and
because of that he gave alms to the Jewish people, and continually prayed to
God. Cornelius had a seeking heart and
was living up to the light he had, and God was about to give him more. MacArthur writes that “This is the necessary balance
to divine election, that God responds to the seeking, willing heart (cf. Isa.
55:6-7; Jer. 29:13; John 7:17). Divine
election and human responsibility are by God and commanded of sinners. Although our limited comprehension does not
allow us to harmonize them, there is no conflict in the mind of God.
This is about all I am able to do this morning and
hopefully will do more tomorrow.
Answer to our last Bible
Question: “Nun” (Joshua 1:1).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who is described as King of
Kings and Lord of Lords?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/15/2018 11:34 AM
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