SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/26/2020 9:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Teaching of the Old Testament”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
5:43b
Message of the
verse: “You shall love your
neighbor.”
As
we closed the SD from yesterday I stated that we will look at what David has
said and we will begin with Psalm 7:4-5 “4 If I have
rewarded evil to my friend, Or have plundered him who without cause was my
adversary, 5 Let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it; And let him
trample my life down to the ground And lay my glory in the dust. Selah.” We can see from this Psalm that David knew
that it was wrong to do something bad to someone who wronged either friend or
enemy. (Again we are not talking about
times of war.) Let us move onto Psalm
35:12-15 “12 They repay me evil for good, To the bereavement of my soul.
13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my
soul with fasting, And my prayer kept returning to my bosom. 14 I went about as
though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows
for a mother. 15 But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves
together; The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me, They
slandered me without ceasing.” MacArthur
adds “David grieved over and prayed for his enemies when they were sick and in
need, despite that fact that they repaid him ‘evil for good’ and rejoiced when
he himself was in trouble.”
We
have look a lot at David in some of the SD’s that I have written and we know
that those were not mere words for David, because we know he lived out that
spirit of love. Remember when Saul was
seeking to kill him, David had and easy opportunity to take Saul’s life. This happened when Saul went into a cave to relieve
himself, but David would not kill Saul, David knew that even though he was his
enemy that he was still the king at that time and David had no right to kill
him. There were other times that were similar
after David became king that he would not take the life of some of Saul’s
family as seen in 2 Sam. 16:5-10.
In
the book of Proverbs we read, “He who rejoices at calamity will not go
unpunished,” the writer of Proverbs is saying that even though an enemy dies we
are not to rejoice over it. I have to
say that I had a friend of mine whose wife had died last Saturday the day after
one of the Supreme Justices died and my thought was that my friends wife was rejoicing
with the Lord in heaven while the other person was not one who was pro-life
now. Proverbs 24:29 “Do not say, ‘Thus I
shall do to him as he has done to me, but “If your enemy is hungry, give him
something to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink” (2 5:21). Paul would use these verses in the book of
Romans later on. MacArthur concludes “Throughout
the Old Testament, God’s standard for His people was to treat even their
enemies like their friends and families.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Sometimes it is hard to be willing to remember
that the Lord is the One who gives out justice.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Remember when this world is about to be
burned up that God’s justice will prevail.
9/26/2020 11:30 AM
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