SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/19/2021 11:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Intro to Matthew 8:1-15”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
8:1-15
Message of the verses: “1 When Jesus came
down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him
and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can
make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying,
"I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was
cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show
yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a
testimony to them." 5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came
to Him, imploring Him, 6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed
at home, fearfully tormented." 7 Jesus said to him, "I will come and
heal him." 8 But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You
to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 “For
I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one,
‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do
this!’ and he does it." 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He
marveled and said to those who were following,
"Truly I say to you, I have not
found such great faith with anyone in Israel. 11 “I say to you that many will
come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out
into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth." 13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for
you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very
moment. 14 When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying
sick in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and
she got up and waited on Him.”
John
MacArthur entitles this first chapter in his second commentary on Matthew which
covers chapters 8-15 “Jesus’ Power over Disease” and this first chapter covers
the first 15 verses of the eight chapter.
We
see three physical miracles in these first fifteen verses of Matthew chapter
eight. The first miracle is a miracle of
a man who was a leper and I remember studying this when going through the
gospel of Mark and MacArthur titled that section “Jesus Changes Places with a
Leper,” for after the healing the leper was so happy that he did not do what
Jesus commanded him to do which caused great crowds to get around Jesus so much
that He could not do much.
Now
as we look at chapter eight it does leave off right where chapter seven leaves
off, with the Sermon on the Mount as a sort of parenthesis in between, for at
the end of chapter 4, Jesus was “23 going about in Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,
and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease
and every kind of sickness among the people.
24 The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to
Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains,
demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them. 25 Large crowds followed
Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from
beyond the Jordan”(Matthew 4:23-25).
Then we begin chapter five we read that Jesus “went up on the mountain”
(Matthew 5:1). That is where Jesus began
“The Sermon on the Mount,” which ended at the end of chapter seven. Now we see in 8:1 that there were still “great
crowds” and this timeline is important for us to understand as we begin looking
at chapter eight.
John
MacArthur writes “In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turned the religious
beliefs and practices of popular Judaism, especially those of the scribes and
Pharisees, topsy-turvy. He had told
them, in effect, that their teaching was wrong, their living was wrong, and
their attitude was wrong. Virtually
everything they believed in, stood for, and hoped in was unbiblical and
ungodly. The Lord overturned their
entire religious system and exposed them as religious hypocrites and spiritual
phonies.”
Now
as always we will take our time in looking at every section, and so tomorrow I
want to quote from the introduction of chapters 8-9 by Warren Wiersbe so that
we can get his prospective on what we are looking at, and one other thing and
that is that I will not be quoting the verses that are in this section until we
get through the introduction.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is my desire to better understand the
spiritual meaning of all the miracles that Jesus did while on earth. Do I believe in miracles done in our day and
age? My answer is that every time a
person accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord that is a miracle. I don’t believe in someone having the gift of
healing otherwise he could go around healing everyone like Jesus did, but God
does heal people when He desires to do so for His glory.
My Steps of Faith For Today: Continue to trust the Lord to have more
people join our prayer group to pray for revival, and continue to pray that the
Spirit of God will work in the hearts of others around our country and the
world to pray for a true Holy Spirit Revival.
3/19/2021 12:45 PM
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