Tuesday, September 22, 2020

"Liberty" (Matt. 5:41)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/22/2020 10:00 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                                Focus:  “Liberty”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Matthew 5:41

 

            Message of the verse:  “And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two.”

 

            I have mentioned in earlier SD’s that the Sermon on the Mount speaks of what the Kingdom life will be like, and also mentioned that we as believers are living in what is sometimes called the invisible kingdom with our King ruling from His seat in Heaven beside His Father.  In the past few SD’s we have been looking at things that believers will be willing to give up as a part of the kingdom life things like indignity, security, liberty, (one we will look at today), and then the last one which Lord willing, we will look at tomorrow which is property from Matthew 5:42.  So our focus for today is giving up liberty, the third right the Lord indicates kingdom citizens are to be willing to sacrifice as part of the kingdom.  I believe that the Bible teaches that God’s original intention was for everyone made in His image to live in freedom, and as we can see that sin certainly has prevented that to happen.  We see human bondage and slavery are consequences of the Fall and have no part in God’s original plan for His creation.  As we look throughout history we can see that the best human governments have always tried to protect the freedom of their citizens, and sometimes even of foreigners.  In light of God’s will and also proper human justice, men have the right to certain freedoms.  However like other rights, freedom is not to be cherished and protected at the expense of righteousness or even of faithful witness.

 

            If we look back at the Roman law it gave a soldier the right to force a civilian to carry his pack for a (million), a Roman mile, which was slightly shorter than our modern mile.  That law, designed to relieve the soldier, not only caused great inconvenience to citizens but was made even more despicable by the fact that the opposed were made to carry the equipment and weapons of their oppressors.  This probably was the most hated thing that the Roman soldiers did outside of being in combat.

 

            MacArthur concludes this section:  “Yet even so despised a burden should be carried willingly, Jesus says—not only willingly but with magnanimity.  When we are forced to go ‘one mile,’ we should willingly go ‘two.’  When we are robbed of some of our cherished liberty, we should surrender even more of it rather than retaliate.  In so doing we are obedient to our Lord and testify to His righteousness, knowing that in Him we have a dearer freedom that the world cannot take from us.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to admit that the things that we have been studying lately are very difficult for me to comprehend, and I suppose the reason for this is because of living in a free country all of my life and have become spoiled.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to live my life in this country the way that the Lord desires me to live as I am a part of the indivisible kingdom of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

9/22/2020 10:21 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment