The Grace of God Seen in the choice of One Woman (Matt. 1:16)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/21/2019 11:02 AM

My Worship Time                        Focus:  “The Grace of God Seen In the choice of One Woman”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 1:16

            Message of the verse:  “16 Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.”

            Here is a quote from our last SD to help explain where we are going:  “The graciousness of this King and of the God who sent Him can be seen in the genealogy of four places and ways.  We will look at these in logical, rather than chronological order.”

            When we begin to talk about Mary we will see that some of the things that are spoken of about Mary are not true which we will get into as we move along in the SD.  We know that Mary was a descendent of King David, but as we have already learned she came through the line of David’s son Nathan, and not through Solomon which is where her husband Joseph came.  Mary was just an ordinary, unknown woman who desired to do the will of God.  Many women during this time period desired to be the mother of the Messiah but God chose Mary.  When you read about what Mary said in the gospel of Luke you can see that Mary was a sinner and in need of salvation just like every other person born with the exception of Jesus Christ.  Mary was likely much better, morally and spiritually, than most people of her time, but she was not sinless.  She was deeply devout and faithful to the Lord, as she demonstrated in the passage we have eluded to, Luke 1:38 and following.  The following verses in Luke’s gospel are what Elizabeth said about Mary, and then after that are what Mary stated about being chosen by God to deliver the Messiah into the world.  46 And Mary said: "My soul exalts the Lord, 47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior”  (Luke 1:46-47).  John MacArthur writes “The notion of her being co-redemptrix and co-mediator with Christ are wholly unscriptural and were never a part of early church doctrine.  Those heretical ideas came into the church several centuries later, through accommodations to pagan myths that originated in the Babylonian mystery religions.”

            When we studied the book of Revelation four years ago we talked about how Babylon was behind every so-called “religion” meaning false religions.  This all started with a man named Nimrod who was a grandson of Ham, one of Noah’s sons.  There has always been a mother/son cult involved in this religion from its very beginning.  Different names were given to the mother son cult as it evolved in different religions.  As we move toward the time after Jesus Christ was crucified and the beginnings of the church, as mentioned this mother/son cult was not involved in the church.  It wasn’t until the times when the church was being persecuted by the Romans that their emperor Constantine was fighting in a battle in which he saw a cross, and he took this as a sign for him to follow.  He stopped the persecution of the church and named Christianity as the state religion.  He changed the names of Romans mother/son cult to Mary and Jesus and that is how this cult came into the church. 

            John MacArthur writes “The Bible knows nothing of Mary’s grace except that which she received from the Lord.  She was the recipient, never the dispenser, of grace.  The literal translation of ‘favored one’ (Luke 1:28) is ‘one endured with grace.’  Just as all the rest of fallen mankind, Mary needed God’s grace and salvation.  That is why she ‘rejoiced in God [her] Savior’ (Luke 1:47).  She received a special measure of the Lord’s grace by being chosen to be the mother of Jesus; but she was never a source of grace.  God’s grace shoes a sinful woman to have the unequaled privilege of giving birth to the Messiah.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful for the grace of God, grace that was given to Mary in order for her to believe in her Son for her salvation, and grace that I too can believe in her Son so I can receive salvation.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  One has to be humble to receive the salvation that Jesus has provided, knowing that there was nothing I could do on my own to be saved.

Quotation from “Love in Action” for today is from David Jeremiah’s comments on Genesis 2:18.

“We snap to attention when we read this statement.  It was God’s assessment that man should not be alone, that He needed someone to relate to him.  So God created woman.  Contrary to what some have jokingly said, woman is not a cognate of the words ‘woe to man.’  The word ‘woman’ in the Hebrew language is the word isha.  Man is ish, woman is isha.”