SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/28/2020 9:51 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“A Single Master”
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Matthew 6:24
Message of the verse: “24 “No one can
serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he
will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
I
want to begin by look at a short paragraph the Warren Wiersbe wrote about this
24th verse of Matthew chapter six.
“Finally, materialism can enslave the will (Matt. 6:24). We cannot serve two masters
simultaneously. Either Jesus Christ is
our Lord, or money is our lord. It is a
matter of the will. ‘But those who want
to get rich fall into temptation and a snare’ (1 Tim. 6:9). If God grants riches, and we use them for His
glory, then riches are a blessing. But
if we will to get rich, and live with that outlook, we will pay a great price
for those riches.” I can always depend
on Warren Wiersbe to put things in a way that makes sense to me.
What
we are looking at in this section is the third choice and it relates to
allegiance, to masters. Hopefully we as
believers realize that we cannot have our treasures both in earth and in heaven
or our bodies both in light and in darkness as we have been talking about over
the last seven SD’s. In the same way we
cannot server God and money.
John
MacArthur writes “Kurios (‘masters’)
is often translated lord, and refers to a slave owner. The idea is not simply that of an employer, of
which a person may have several at the same time and work for each of them
satisfactorily. Many people today hold
two or more jobs. If we work the number
of hours they are supposed to and perform their work as expected, they have
fulfilled their obligation to their employers, no matter how many they
have. The idea is of masters of slaves.”
Now
as we look at this word Kurios as
being a slave owner they would have complete control of their slaves. Slaves don’t have part-time jobs, as they
have to continually work for their masters as he owes full time service to a
full-time master. The slave is owned and totally controlled by and obligated to
his master. The slave has nothing left
for anyone else. MacArthur adds “To give
anything to anyone else would make his master less than master. It is not simply difficult, but absolutely
impossible, to ‘serve two masters’ and fully or faithfully be the obedient
slave of each.”
We
can see over and over in the NT that is speaks of Christ as Lord and Master and
of believers as His bondslaves. However
Paul speaks of what believers were before they became believers in Jesus Christ
as they were slaves to sin, but when we trusted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord
then we became slaves of God and of righteousness. “16 Do you not know that when you present
yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you
obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though
you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching
to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became
slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness
of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and
to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your
members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when
you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore
what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now
ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed
from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in
sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life” (Romans 6:16-22).
I
believe that these verses help us to understand what Jesus is talking about in
our verse for today. I also want to
mention that Jesus was a slave while here on earth, but in most English
translations the word “doulos” which means slave is translated as bond-servant
in Philippians 2:7 “but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and
being made in the likeness of men.”
Think for a moment what this means as our Savior and Lord became a slave
in order that we as believers can also become slaves of righteousness. While on earth Jesus was doing the will of
the Father, as He was a slave to Him in order to save those who will come to
Him in repentance of sin and accept His work on the cross as payment for their
sins so they can live forever with Him in heaven.
We
know from the life of Christ that He did not, and could not serve two masters,
and so this is what He is asking us to do while in our bodies here on planet
earth as a believer.
John
MacArthur quotes John Calvin who said “Where riches hold the dominion of the
heart, God has lost His authority.” This
is a very sobering statement.
We
will conclude this SD with quotations from John MacArthur’s commentary: “The orders of those two masters are
diametrically opposed and cannot coexist.
The one commands us to walk by faith and the other demands we walk by
sight. The one calls us to be humble and
the other to be proud, the one to set our minds on things above and the other
to set them on things below. One calls
us to love light, the other to love darkness.
The one tells us to look toward things unseen and eternal and the other
to look at things seen and temporal.
“The
person whose master is Jesus Christ can say that, when he eats or drinks or
does anything else, he does ‘all to the glory of God’ (1 Cor. 10:31). He can
say with David, ‘I have set the Lord continually before me’ (Ps. 16:8), and
with Caleb when he was eighty-five years old, ‘I followed the Lord my God fully’
(Josh. 14:8).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I truly like the section in this SD that
speaks of Christ being a slave, obeying His Father’s plan for Him while on
earth, doing all that He wanted Him to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to lead me and to guide me so
that what I do will bring glory to Him.
12/28/2020 11:39 AM
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