SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/29/2020
8:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Calling James and John”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
4:21-22
Message of the verses: “21 And going on
from there He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John
his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He
called them. 22 And they immediately left the boat and their father, and
followed Him.”
When
Jesus called James and John they were rough outdoors men who were in the boat
with their father doing a job that was not the most fun work to do but when you
are fishermen the nets have to be mended in order for fish to stay in them. Jesus had called them to faith in He, the
Messiah earlier as seen in the gospel of John, but this was the call to do the
work of an evangelist and as soon as He called them they immediately followed
Him. This would be their task to do for the
rest of their lives, doing the work of an evangelist. I just finished looking at a section of
verses in the book of Genesis to place onto my other blog and in those verses
is speaks of the work that Adam and Eve would be doing in the garden that the
Lord had created. The point was that
there was work to do even before the fall, and there is work to do after the
fall too, and James and John’s would be to follow the Savior for three years so
that they could learn from Him and then after His resurrection they would
continue to do the work of an evangelist, telling others how they can be saved
and receive eternal life.
We
have mentioned before the type of people that Jesus called to do this work for
Him, and the men that he chose were different than the so called experts found
in Jerusalem, these were men that were not educated in the schools found in
Jerusalem that the Scribes and the Pharisees attended. Jesus would later call Saul who became Paul
the Apostle who did attend one of those schools, but after His calling he
realized that the things that he learned from the school had a much deeper
meaning. I believe that they taught
about the Old Testament which would come alive to Paul after he was called by
Jesus to salvation.
John
MacArthur describes these disciples in the following quotation: “These disciples had little education, little
spiritual perception, and possibly little religious training of any sort. As their new Master began to teach them, even
when He spoke in parables, they often lacked full comprehension of His meaning.
“They
were often self-centered and inhospitable.
When the multitude who had waslked a long way around the Sea of Galilee
to be with Jesus became hungry the disciples though only of sending them away
on their own to find food (Matt. 14:15).
When some little children were brought to Jesus for blessing, the
disciples rebuked those who brought them (19:13). Peter thought he would be extremely generous
to forgive someone ‘up to seven times’ (18:21).
Even on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, as their Lord agonized in the
Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James, and John could not stay awake with Him
(26:40, 45). The disciples were selfish,
proud, weak, and cowardly. They showed
little potential even for dependability, much less for greatness. Yet Jesus chose them for disciples, even to
be His inner circle of twelve. They were
raw material that He would make into useful instruments.”
As
I think over this description of these disciples I can see them in a different
light as I think about these things that were pointed out in these two
paragraphs and therefore can better understand these men would be responsible
to begin to tell the world about the Savior.
I realize that after Pentecost that they would be filled with the Holy
Spirit to continue their education as Jesus promised. As long as they depended on the power of the
Holy Spirit they would do fine, it is when they were not doing this and trying
to do it on their own that they would fail.
The same is true with me too, as I need to be in control of the Holy
Spirit in order to do the work that God has called me to do.
2/29/2020 9:46 AM
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