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.”
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