SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/3/2019
10:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The Virgin
Birth Consummated”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
1:24-25
Message of the verses: “24 And Joseph
awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary
as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he
called His name Jesus.”
Well
we have come to the last two verses in the first chapter of Matthew and I have
to believe that this first chapter will be the fasted one that we will get
through as move on to the remaining 27 chapters, Lord willing, beginning tomorrow.
We
have to believe that Joseph was asleep when God gave him this message through
one of his angels. This is not unique as
dreams are ways that God did communicate to different people in the Old
Testament times. Joseph not only had
dreams from the Lord, but also interpreted them while in Egypt. Daniel also had visions and dreams and also
was able to interpret them while in Babylon.
Ezekiel is another who had many visions that God had given to him. I don’t recall any other dreams in the New
Testament, but do recall a few visions that Paul had told in the book of
Acts. What I am saying is that I find it
hard to believe that God speaks to NT believers in dreams or visions since the
Bible has been completed. I suppose that
others may not agree with me about this.
What
we can see here in these verses is that Joseph immediately obeyed, doing “as
the angel of the Lord commanded him.” I
suppose that Joseph was as we say “on cloud nine” after learning the truth of
Mary’s pregnancy. We don’t really know
much about Joseph, but one thing we do know that God chose him specially to be
the one to raise the Lord while he was young, and we also know that Joseph was
a righteous man. MacArthur writes “The
fact alone would indicate the depth of Joseph’s godliness. It is inconceivable that God would entrust
His Son into a family where the father was not totally committed and faithful
to Him.
MacArthur
concludes his commentary on this first chapter with the following three
paragraphs. “Apparently the marriage
ceremony, when Joseph ‘took her as his wife,’ was held soon after the angel’s announcement. But he ‘kept her a virgin until she gave
birth to a Son.’ Matthew makes it clear that
she remained a virgin ‘until she gave birth,’ implying that normal marital
relations began after that time. The
fact that Jesus’ brothers and sisters are spoken of numerous times in the
gospels (Matt. 12:46; 13:55-56; Mark 6:3; etc.) prove that Mary did not remain
a virgin perpetually; as some claim.
As
a final act of obedience to God’s instruction through the angel, Joseph ‘called
His name Jesus,’ indicating that He was to be the Savior (cf. v. 21).
“The
supernatural birth of Jesus is the only way to account for the life that He
lived. A skeptic who denied the virgin
birth once asked a Christian, ‘If I told you that child over there was born
with a human father, would you believe me?’
The believer replied, ‘Yes, if he lived as Jesus lived.’ The greatest outward evidence of Jesus’
supernatural and deity is His life.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Thinking on the life that Jesus lived as seen
in the gospels makes it perfectly clear that His birth was indeed supernatural.
My Steps of Faith for Today: The part of Jesus’ life that I have been
thinking about is that which comes from the following “8 Being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself.”
Today’s quotation from “Love In Action”
is the commentary that David Jeremiah writes on Proverbs 22:6.
“Each child needs to know he is unique
and unlike any other child God ever created.
The Hebrew phrase ‘in the way’
describes the habit or character of an individual at his own age level. The emphasis is on the importance of
adjusting our training according to the ability of a child at each stage of his
development. Each child has his own way,
and by paying attention, we can determine what that way is. The root meaning for the term ‘train up’ is ‘palate or roof of the mouth.’
The Arab midwife would take olive oil or crushed dates on her finger and
rub the palate of a newborn baby to create in the infant a desire to suck. A real meaning of ‘training’ is to create a
taste or desire. Our task is to develop
in our children a hunger of desire for spiritual things, to cultivate an urge
to follow God.”
12/3/2019 10:49 AM
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