SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/26/2020
11:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Intro
to Matt. 4:18-22”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
4:18-22
Message of the verses: “18 And walking by
the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew
his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 And He said
to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." 20 And they
immediately left the nets, and followed Him. 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.”
I
mentioned that we will continue to look at how the disciples of Jesus were called
in today’s SD. As one looks through the
gospels and compares them they will find that there were at least five
different phases of Jesus’ calling His twelve disciples. Each one of the gospel writers emphasized
those phases in order to use them in their particular purpose of writing the
gospel. The very first call was for
salvation to have faith in Jesus as their Messiah, and this can be seen in John’s
gospel 1:35-51; and also 2:11. This
calling that Matthew mentions here in our verses for today is the second
calling, which is the calling to witness.
Neither in of these first two callings did the disciples leave their
occupation, nor in this case which would be fishing. The third call is seen in
Luke 5:1-22 and we will take the time to look at these verses:
“1 Now it happened that while the crowd
was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by
the lake of Gennesaret; 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but
the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 And He got
into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way
from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the
boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, "Put out into the
deep water and let down your nets for a catch." 5 Simon answered and said,
"Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You
say and let down the nets." 6 When they had done this, they
enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so
they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help
them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. 8
But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, "Go
away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" 9 For amazement had seized him and all his
companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were
James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said
to Simon, "Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men." 11 When they had brought their
boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.”
We
will now look at the fourth level found in Mark’s gospel and in chapter three
verses thirteen to fifteen. “13 And He
went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they
came to Him. 14 And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and
that He could send them out to preach, 15 and to have authority to cast
out the demons.”
The
fifth phase is found in Matthew 10:1 “1 Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and
gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every
kind of disease and every kind of sickness.”
John
MacArthur concludes this section in the following “God calls all believers in a
similar way. First He calls us to
salvation, apart from which no other call could be effective. He then calls us progressively to more
specific and ever-expanding service.”
Now as I think about this process it runs in my mind that the
progressive sanctification is something that is involved in these different
phases. Then I have one more question
that I don’t have an answer to, but if I do get one that satisfies me I will
then put it on one of my Spiritual Diaries.
The question is what about Judas?
Was Judas involved in the casting out of demons? Was he involved in all the things that the disciples
were involved in? My first thought is
that he was, but I can’t explain why I believe this is true. At any rate we will begin to look at “Calling
Peter and Andrew,” in our next SD, Lord willing.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is good to read and study about all of
these different phases so that I can pray that the phases that God has in my
life will be done to the glory of God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Things have not changed much for this section
as I still desire to learn humility, and have joy as I study God’s Word.
2/26/2020 11:45 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment