SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/30/2020
11:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Testing of Spiritual Hunger”
My Worship Time Reference: Matthew 5:6
Message of the
verse: “6 Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be
filled.”
In this Spiritual Diary we will look
at five marks of genuine hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness.
1.
Dissatisfaction
of self: I suppose an example of the
opposite of this quality can be seen from the Pharisees as they truly loved
their own righteousness and thought that they were on their way to heaven
because of their own righteousness.
Believers realize that we need the righteousness of Jesus Christ in
order to have a relationship with the Lord.
Thomas Watson wrote “He has most need of righteousness that least wants
it.” Paul wrote in Romans 7:24 “Wretched
man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
2.
The second mark
of genuine hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness is freedom from dependence
on external things for satisfaction.
Perhaps the things that are going on in our country and also around the
world has showed us that we don’t need all the things that we thought we
needed. I remember a story from John
MacArthur’s sermon on this subject about someone he knew that was a house
builder in Colorado. The story was there
was a natural disaster which destroyed many homes of considerable value. Since his friend was a builder he began to
rebuild the homes for people. One thing
that may be strange was that not one of the people he was building for missed
their old homes because the consensuses was that none of them missed the “things”
that were in their old homes. John
MacArthur writes “Neither can anything but God’s own righteousness satisfy the
person who has true spiritual hunger and thirst.”
3.
The third is
craving for the Word of God, which is the basis spiritual food that He provides
for His children. I suppose that no one
has had to beg a hungry man to eat.
Think about the story of Jacob and Esau found in Genesis 26:29-34. Let us look at Jeremiah 15:16 “Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became
for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name,
O LORD God of hosts.” MacArthur adds “The
more we seek God’s righteousness, the more we want to devour Scripture. Feeding on God’s Word increases our appetite
for it.”
4.
Fourth is the
pleasantness of the things of God. First
we will look at Proverbs 27:7 “A sated man loathes
honey, But to a famished man any bitter thing is sweet (NASB). “When you’ve stuffed yourself, you refuse
dessert; when you’re starved, you could eat a horse” (Message). “A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the
hungry”(NLT). I realize that this may be
kind of a strange verse but let us look at it from a spiritual way. The believer who seeks God’s righteousness
above all other things will find great fulfillment and also satisfaction even
in those things that humanly are disastrous.
Again we look at a quote from Puritan Thomas Watson who comments that “the
one who hungers and thirst after righteousness can feed on the myrrh of the
gospel as well as the honey.” MacArthur
notes “even the Lord’s reproofs and discipline bring satisfaction, because they
are sings of our Father’s love. ‘Ro
those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He
receives’ (Heb. 12:6).”
5.
This is the
final mark of true spiritual hunger and is unconditionally. When a believer’s hunger and thirst are
genuine then they will make no conditions; as they will seek and accept God’s
righteousness in whatever way that He chooses to provide it, and thus will obey
His commands no matter how demanding they may be. MacArthur adds “The least of God’s
righteousness is more valuable than the greatest of anything we posses in
ourselves or that the world can offer.”
The story of the rich young ruler tells us that he wanted only the part
of God’s kingdom that fit his own plans and also his desires, so this made him
unfit for the Kingdom of God. This young
ruler thirsted more for other things than for the things of God, his desires
were not unconditional.
John
MacArthur concludes this section and this chapter by writing “The spiritually
hungry do not ask for Christ and economic success, Christ and personal satisfaction,
Christ and popularity, or Christ and anything else. The want only
Christ and what God in His wisdom and love sovereignly provides through Christ—whatever
that may or may not be.”
We
will end by looking at two verses which help us understand the spiritually
hungry cry: “My
soul is crushed with longing After Your ordinances at all times” (Ps. 119:20). “At night my soul longs for You, Indeed, my
spirit within me seeks You diligently” (Isa. 26:9).
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One of the things that I have issues is where
I am living as I have lived in Northeast Ohio all of my life and the weather is
not something that I like at all. I know
that at this time in my life that this is where God wants me, so I will have to
trust the Lord to give me the grace to stay where He has planted me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Grace to learn contentment, humility, and joy
in the Word of God.
4/30/2020 12:05 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment