SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/15/2021 10:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-7 “Differences”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
7:24-27
Message of the verses: “24 “Therefore
everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a
wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 “And the rain fell, and the floods
came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did
not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 “Everyone who hears these words
of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his
house on the sand. 27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall.’”
Once
again I want to begin with a quotation from John MacArthur: “The greatest problem in evangelism is not
follow-up but conversion. Right
follow-up is not nearly so difficult as right conversion. Follow-up is the hardest when conversion is the
easiest, because easy conversion is frequently no conversion. It results from seed falling on rocky soil,
where it springs up quickly and dies just as quickly. The unconverted are indeed hard to follow up,
whereas those who have truly come to Christ are eager to learn from His Word
and associate with His people.”
Speaking
of the “wise man” he will build very carefully and the reason is because there
is substance and great importance to what he is building. Let us look at Luke 6:47-49 with emphasis on
verse 48 which is a parallel passage to our verses in Matthew. “47 “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My
words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 he is like a man building a
house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood
occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because
it had been well built. 49 "But the one who has heard and has not
acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without
any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed,
and the ruin of that house was great.’”
The wise man is not satisfied with superficial confessions of faith,
with quickie conversions that involve no repentance, no mourning over sin, and
no despairing of self as verse 48 illustrates.
It takes work, not work to be saved or stay saved, but work to grow in
our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as Peter wrote in his second letter,
actually the last verse he wrote that is in the Bible: “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the
day of eternity. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18).
MacArthur
writes about this wise man “Knowing that he owes everything to the Lord, this
man desires to give Him his maximum effort.
After he does everything his Lord commands he declares that he has only
done his duty (Luke 17:10). Yet he does
not consider his work for the Lord burdensome.
For one thing, the work we truly do for the Lord is the work He does
through us. For another, the work that
is truly done for the Lord is done out of love, not out of, ‘compulsion or
fear. As the anonymous writer of the hymn
‘How Firm a Foundation’ says, the Lord promises this man:
‘The
soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will
not, I will not desert to his foes;
That
soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll
never, no never, no never forsake.’
“The
most tragic difference between the builders is in their final destines. Jesus’ unequaled and un paralleled sermon
masterpiece ends with a devastating warning of judgment. Its final words are: ‘and great was its fall.’ The bottom line of the gospel for those who
reject Christ is not that they forfeit a great deal of blessing or even that they
forfeit a life of eternal bliss with God in heaven—though those things are
absolutely true. The bottom line for
those who reject Christ is that they are destined for everlasting torment,
destruction that keeps on destroying forever.
To reject Christ is to look forward to being ‘cast into hell, where
their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’ (Mark 9:47-48). Because of this inevitability ever professing
Christian needs to hear the words of the Holy Spirit through James: ‘Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not
merely hearers who delude themselves’ (James 1:22). As we learn from Proverbs, ‘There is a kind
who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness.’ (30:12).”
With
these words we have finally gotten to the end of the greatest sermon every
preached, “The Sermon on the Mount.” In
our next SD we will look at the “Response to the Sermon,” which are not the
words of Jesus, but of Matthew.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful to the Lord for this sermon and
am thankful for the time that He has allowed me to go through it, as we began
looking at this sermon on the 12th of March of last year and so we
have been looking at it for a few days over a year as I don’t think that I have
missed a day in studying it, and for that I am grateful to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I pray that the Holy Spirit of God will be
greatly involved in our little prayer group which will begin this Wednesday at
around 8:00 PM.
3/15/2021 10:57 AM
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