SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/1/2020 10:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Purpose: To Glorify God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:16
Message of the verse: “16 “Let your light
shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father who is in heaven.’”
Well
we finally come to the end of these amazing verses from Matthew chapter
five. It seems that we have been in the
fifth chapter of Matthew for a long time, and we have been in this chapter
since March 12, 2020, and Lord willing we will be in it for some time to come,
but it surely has been a wonderful chapter to study. Today we will look at the 16th
verse and find out that the purpose of what Jesus has been saying in verses
13-16, and also I believe from the beginning of the Beatitudes is to glorify
God. We will begin this last section
with a quote from John MacArthur as he explains the word “good” to us.
“The
word (kalos) for ‘good’ that Jesus
uses here does not so much emphasize quality—though that obviously is important—as
it does attractiveness, beautiful appearance.
Letting our ‘light shine before men’ allows them to see our ‘good works,’
the beauty the Lord has worked in us. To
see good works by us is to see Christ in us.
That is why Jesus says, ‘let your light shine.’ It is not something we create or make up, but
something we allow the Lord to do through us.
It is God’s light; our choice is whether to hide it or let it shine.”
It
is the purpose of letting our light shine to bring glory to the Lord and not to
ourselves, as we don’t want to bring attention to ourselves, but to the Lord
whom we as believers owe everything. We
have written in a few earlier SD’s about what the West Minister Catechism is
and that is that “The chief end of man is to glorify God.” Jesus says in this verse that we are to
glorify our Father, and Father emphasizes God’s tenderness and intimacy, and
speaking then of His being in heaven this emphasizes His majesty and holiness,
as He is pictured dwelling in the splendor of His eternal holy home. What our good works are to do is to magnify
God’s grace and power. MacArthur adds “The
way we live should lead those around us to ‘glorify’ (doxazo, from which we get doxology) the heavenly ‘Father.”
If
we as believers do things that bring attention to ourselves, then we are not
the light that they see is not the light that they should see, which of course
comes from the Father through us if we are walking with Him in a proper way.
I
find the following short story remarkable as MacArthur talks about “Robert
Murray McCheyne, a godly Scottish minister of the last century (1800’s), that
his face carried such a hallowed expression that people were known to fall on
their knees and accept Jesus Christ as Savior when they looked at him. Others were so attracted by the self-giving
beauty and holiness of his life that they found his Master irresistible.”
There
is another man MacArthur brings up, a man that I have never heard of. He is the French pietist Francois Fenelon and
he states that “his communion with God was such that his face shined with
divine radiance. A religious skeptic who
was compelled to spend the night in an inn with Fenelon hurried away the next
morning saying, ‘If I spend another night with that man Il’’ be a Christian in
spite of myself.’”
These
two stories are the example of the kind of salt and light God wants His kingdom
people to be.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The examples given in the two stories that I
quoted from MacArthur’s commentary seem to be something out of the times when
the Apostles walked on the earth or perhaps some of the OT saints lived. To learn to be salt and light like these men
should be my goal.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to bring glory to the Lord and one
of the ways I can do that is to fight the good fight.
7/1/2020 10:51 AM
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