SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/1/2020
11:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Preparation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 4:1-2
Message of the verses: “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.”
Mark
1:12 gives us more insight into these verses:
“Immediately
the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.” Mark uses one of his favorite words to
describe that this happened very fast, “immediately.” This speaks of how fast this happened after
His baptism. Let us look at what
MacArthur writes about the word “impelled” “Mark’s use of ekballo (‘impelled’) indicates the necessity of Jesus’
temptation. Although the temptations
were given by Satan, they were a part of God’s perfect plan for the redemptive
work of His Son.”
I
want to talk about something that happened to my family back when our son was
just born on January 23, 1979. We found
out that he had a complicated problem with his heart as he was what was called
a “blue baby,” and in his case he had a hole in his heart and also one of his
valves was too tight which caused the blood to flow through the hole and
therefore was not going to his lungs to get oxygen. We knew a week after his birth that he had to
have surgery to correct this problem. I
have to tell you that there was much prayer going up for him for eighteen
months before he would have his open heart surgery. There were a number of other surgeries he
went through but I believe that it was May 7, 1980 that he had his surgery on
his heart. There were some complications
right after surgery, but after more prayer that the Lord answered he was
actually home in a week. The reason that
I write about this story was because after eighteen months of many people
praying we saw a great victory and after a great victor there usually comes a
time of temptation. “Therefore let him
who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Spiritually speaking after the great answers
to our prayers and knowing that our son was going to be okay I had the worst
summer that I can remember after this great victory. After Jesus’ coronation and baptism He then
goes out into the wilderness compelled by the Spirit to fast for forty days and
be tempted by Satan. John MacArthur
writes “When we are most exhilarated with success we are also most vulnerable
to pride—and to failure.”
Sometimes
after a great spiritual victory we can think that we are invincible and then we
let down our guard, and when testing comes we are not prepared for them. Perhaps most of know the story of Elijah
found in 1 Kings 18:16-46 that tells about Elijah killing 450 prophets of Baal. I suppose that this would make you feel
invincible after that, but what happened afterwards? Elijah heard that the wicked queen Jezebel
was after him and so he then ran away from her.
Killing 450 prophets takes a lot of courage and trust in the Lord, but
then you run away from a woman. Jezebel was the one that brought Baal worship
into Israel and I suppose that it angered her that those prophets were killed
by Elijah. At any rate after this great
victory Elijah let his guard down and ran into the wilderness to escape
Jezebel. Elijah actually told the Lord
to take his life, but the Lord had more work for him to do and besides Elijah
would be the second man that the Lord would take to heaven without experiencing
death, Enoch was the first back in the early chapters of Genesis.
We
will continue, Lord willing, to look at this section in our next SD.
2/1/2020 11:46 AM
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