SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/10/2018
12:06 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Spiritual Mission”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 13:2b-5
Message of the
verses: “the Holy Spirit said,
"Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called
them." 3 Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on
them, they sent them away. 4 So, being
sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they
sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word
of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper.”
We want to begin by looking at verse three “when they had
fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them.” I have mentioned that when you see fasting in
the Word of God you very often see praying going along with the fasting. One goes with the other as when you fast, and
when I talk about fasting I believe that a true fast consists of only drinking
water, and when you do that it helps to cleanse your body, and your body does
not have to go through what takes the most energy and that is digesting your
food. I have also mentioned that once
you fast for a total of three days you are not hungry until your body tells you
to eat and that is when you need to eat.
We read the following from Matthew 4:1 “Then Jesus was led up by the
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had
fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.” Notice the highlighted part of verse
four as after Jesus had fasted for forty days and nights He then became hungry
and this meant that His fast was complete.
I do not believe that Jesus went that long without water as one can only
go about three days without liquids.
Jesus was the perfect human being as He was born without a sin nature
like every other person is born with, and to me that means His body was
perfect. I have read that people have
fasted for ninety days, drinking only water before they became hungry again,
but Jesus became hungry after forty days and nights of fasting. When you fast and as mentioned you body is
actually repairing itself while you do this your thinking is much sharper and
so your prayer life is better and that is why fasting and prayer goes together.
Now we want to talk about how the leaders of the church
at Antioch laid their hands on Saul and Barnabas, and this does not mean that
they did not have the Holy Spirit, as both had already received the Holy Spirit
when they were born-again. John
MacArthur writes “The laying on of hands simply signified identification,
confirmation, and unity in their upcoming mission (cf. Num. 8:10; 27:18-23).” “10 and present the Levites before the LORD;
and the sons of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites.” “18 So the LORD said to Moses, "Take
Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; 19 and have him stand
before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and commission him
in their sight. 20 “You shall put some of your authority on him, in order that
all the congregation of the sons of Israel may obey him. 21 “Moreover, he shall
stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of
the Urim before the LORD. At his command they shall go out and at his command
they shall come in, both he and the sons of Israel with him, even all the
congregation." 22 Moses did just as the LORD commanded him; and he took
Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. 23
Then he laid his hands on
him and
commissioned him, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses.”
After the leaders laid their hands on Saul and Barnabas
they sent them away. John MacArthur
writes “A better translation of apoluo
(sent them away” might be ‘they let them go,’ or ‘they released them.’ It is clear from verse one that the Spirit,
not the church sent out the two missionaries.
Since He had already sent them, all the church could do was cut the cord
and let them go. That truth is repeated
in verse four, where Luke relates that the missionaries were ‘sent out by the
Holy Spirit.’”
My plans are to finish looking at the rest of this
section in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: The New Testament
tells us in different places “when you fast” and this says that believers
should be fasting from time to time. One
can fast by skipping a meal and take that time to praying, or one can determine
that they need to get closer to the Lord and do a water only fast for a longer
time. This happens when perhaps you have
a crisis or desire to take time to pray about something that the Lord has
placed on your mind to pray about.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will be with me in a
special way as I teach on the church at Laodicea tomorrow in our Sunday school
class.
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: “Their on the cross” (Luke
23:42).
Today’s Bible
question: “In what city did Paul meet
some Epicureans and Stoics?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/10/2018 12:40 PM
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