SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/3/2020
10:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “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.”
We
will be talking about the response of Peter, Andrew, James, and John when the
Lord called them, and that response that was they stopped what they were doing
and they immediately followed the Lord.
Now we mentioned in an earlier SD that there were different calls to all
of the disciples of Jesus, as the first one was for salvation, and then this one
was for service as the service call did not come right away. As I look at my life after I became a
believer I have to say that God was very patient to me, and for that matter is
still very patient to me. When a person
truly becomes a born-again believer in Jesus Christ most of the time they are
on fire for the Lord, and that was the case with my wife and me. There were things that we did right away as
we began a Bible study using tapes to teach others about the Lord, and then
finally the Lord called us to go to a church which we stayed at for 32 years
and we ministered in that church much of the time. Now we have been in our church for almost ten
years and the Lord has allowed me to begin to teach a Sunday school class for
almost three years. It seems to me that
this was a call to do service to the Lord.
In 2010 I began to post my Spiritual Diaries onto the two blogs that I
have and to my understanding this was also a call from the Lord to do
this. I say this to say that not all
calls from the Lord come at the same time as when a person becomes a believer
they need to take time to grow in the Lord and to get their feet under them
when it comes to studying the Word of God
and after that it seems to me that this is when the Lord will call a
person into service. As far as the
disciples this call came early, but we must remember that they were ministering
with the second Person of the god-head and that surely made a difference.
All
of Jesus disciples had little knowledge of Jesus’ teaching or of what following
Him would cost. But it was enough for
them to know who He was and that His call to them was a divine call.
As
we look through the gospels especially we understand that none of these
disciples had a passion for souls or a passion for any part of the Lord’s
work. I suppose they thought that they
would serve the Lord and then the Lord would take over Rome and they would be a
part of His ministry on earth, but this was not the case. The disciples did not really understand
totally what was gone on until the Spirit of God filled them after the Lord
went back to heaven. This happened on
the Day of Pentecost when the church began.
John MacArthur writes “Passion came only after understanding and obedience. They developed compassion, humility,
understand, patience, and love as they learned from and obeyed Jesus. Obedience is the spark that lights the fire of passion. The way to develop a love for souls is to obey
Jesus’ call to win souls. As we do that,
God will kindle that spark of obedience into a great flame of passion. This is the time of gracious evangelism, not
of consuming judgment, as our Lord made clear in the parable of the tares
(Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43).”
We
can see from these four SD’s on the verses we have been covering over the last
several days that it has been mostly on evangelism, which is probably the most important
thing that a believer can do with his life as he follows the Lord.
There
are many missionaries who devoted their lives to the ministry of evangelism,
and I know some of them as they are retired and in my Sunday school class. But think about people like D. L. Moody and
all the work that he did for the cause of Christ, and also Billy Graham who
spent his life in evangelist service for the Lord.
I
will conclude this section with another quote from John MacArthur: “The hymn “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning”
is based on a story told by D. L. Moody.
A ship was coming into Cleveland harbor on Lake Erie on a stormy
night. The harbor had two sets of lights
to guide incoming vessels. One set was
high on the bluff above the harbor and could be seen for many miles. The other set was down near the coastline and
was used to guide the ships through the rocks as they came nearer to port. On that particular night the wind and the
rain had extinguished the lower lights, and the pilot suggested they stay out
in the lake until day-light. The
captain, however, was afraid of the ship’s being destroyed by the storm and
decided to risk making the harbor. But
without the lower lights to guide it, the ship was wrecked on the rocks, and
many of the men drowned. In applying
that story to Christian witnessing, Moody said, ‘The upper lights in heaven are
burning as brightly as ever they’ve burned.
But what about the lower lights?’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I like this story about this great hymn and
all of the things that we have been learning about evangelism and desire for
the Lord to put a great fire in my heart for lost souls.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to seek to learn more humility, and
to find great joy as I study His Word each day.
3/3/2020 10:44 AM
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