SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/16/2020
10:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The
Meaning”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 5:8
Message of the
verse: “"Blessed
(Happy) are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
I realize that there are many times
when people pray for others who have physical troubles in their lives, but
spiritual problems are something that I believe that God cares more about than
physical troubles. The following
quotation comes from a prayer list that I try to use each Saturday for the
pastors of our church, and in this quotation is a quotation from John MacArthur
who speaks about Paul when he was in prison and what was near and dear to his
heart while there:
“4
Effectiveness in Proclamation: Scriptural Example is from Ephesians
6:19: “and pray on my behalf, that
utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with
boldness the mystery of the gospel.” I
want to pray for our Pastors effectiveness in proclamation.
The following is a quote from John MacArthur, “Now remember, Paul was a
prisoner when he wrote that. He didn't say, "Pray...pray for my ankles,
they've been rubbed raw. They're bleeding from the shackles." He didn't
say, "Pray for my healing." He didn't say, "Pray for my
deliverance." He didn't say, "I'm being abused. Pray for my suffering
to end." He didn't want prayer for those things, he said, "Pray for
my boldness in speaking the Word of God." Chains were incidental, absolutely
incidental.” Now this does not mean not
to pray for our Pastors when they are sick.
Another Scriptural example is Colossians 4:2-4“2 Devote yourselves to
prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; 3 praying at the
same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so
that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been
imprisoned; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.” 2 Thessalonians 3:1 “Finally, brethren, pray
for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as
it did also with you.” MacArthur writes: “Pray that I’ll have an opportunity to
speak. Secondly, when that opportunity
presents itself pray that I will speak as I ought to speak. And how I ought to speak is boldly and
clearly. And then the third component is
when I have spoken in that opportunity boldly and clearly, pray that the Word
may spread from there and be glorified.
What is that? The right response,
that men will honor it, they will glorify it by obeying it. The word ‘spread rapidly’ literally in the
Greek is the word to run. It’s a track
word. Pray that it will sprint and be
honored by everybody who hears it.”I believe that we can see from this quotation that God has always been concerned above all else with the inside of a man, with the condition of his heart. Paul truly cared more for the salvation of others (inside of them) more than he cared for his own difficult situation that he was in while in prison.
There is an illustration of a changed heart that did not stay changed too long from the story of Saul, the first king of Israel. In 1 Samuel 10:9 we read “God changed his heart,” and as stated that did not stay too long in Saul’s life. I have always thought that when Israel begged God to give them a king that God gave them a king just like they really wanted, that is a person who was good looking, tall, and strong who they thought would care for their earthly problems. On the other hand God would give them a king who was a man after His own heart and that was King David. This once again shows that God cares more for the inside of man than on the outside as this illustration compares the first two kings of Israel, and it was David who was the one that cared most about what God wanted as his heart was truly changed by the Lord. One of the problems when we think about David was that we tend to think most about his failures and not his great successes that he had for the Lord, like all of the beautiful Psalms that he wrote and all the great things that were in his heart like wanting to build a temple for the Lord. We see most of the whole story of the great saints from the Old Testament including all their sins and failures, and I suppose because we are a fallen people that is why we tend to think about those things than the things that these OT saints did for the Lord. Look at the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, as this has been described as God’s hall of fame, and you won’t see one sin that any of the OT people committed, and that is because Christ died for their sins and God does not see them anymore, so when you think about David think about the fact that David was a man after God’s own heart, and remember that word heart. We as believers surely don’t want others to think about our failures, but the things that the Lord has used us to do for the cause of Christ.
5/16/2020 10:42 AM
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