Wednesday, March 31, 2021

The Relative: A Woman (Matt. 8:14-15)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2021 11:14 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  The Relative: A Woman”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Matthew 8:14-15

 

            Message of the verses:  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.”

 

            As John MacArthur begins this section in his commentary he writes something that is a prayer that many Jewish men would pray in the morning.  They would pray “Lord, I thank Thee that I was not born a slave, a Gentile, or a woman.”  Now as we look at those who Jesus has healed in this chapter the first was a slave, second a Gentile, and now we will see that He heals a woman.  Jesus is showing those who pray that prayer that they really don’t know how to pray, as they have no compassion on these three types of individuals like their Messiah has.

 

            In Mark’s gospel we find that Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James and John came into Peter’s house that it was then that Jesus was informed about the illness that Peter’s mother-in-law had, and so the immediately spoke to Jesus about her illness.  We see from Dr. Luke that she had a very high fever, something that in that day and age they could do little to care for it. 

 

            I also want to point out that in that day and age people had to be really ill to just lie in bed for everyone had jobs to do no matter how they felt and so many people worked through a great deal of pain and discomfort, certainly not like the day and age we live in now.

 

            As in the last to healings we see that once Jesus touched this woman she immediately was healed.  When a person is sick with a fever today and they begin to get over it there is a time period when they still have effects of the fever, but not the case with Peter’s mother-in-law as we see that she got up and began to work in the house to feed her guests.  Another thing we want to talk about is that in verses 11-12 we saw some very strong words that Jesus used about the people of Israel, the Jews, and now He heals one of the Jewish woman so we can surely see that Jesus was not giving up in the Jewish people.  In the letter Paul wrote to the Romans we can see in chapters 9-11 how much Paul cares for the Jewish people, as he even stated that if it were possible that he would give up his own salvation if it meant that the Jews would accept the forgiveness that Jesus offers, but of course that was not possible. 

 

            I will quote some verse from the 11th chapter of Romans to show that God has not given up on the Jewish people which will close this SD.   “2 God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?”  “5  In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.”  “24  For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can see from the prayers that the Jewish men prayed that having a prejudice against someone only hurts the one that has it and not the one who the prejudice is against.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to give my just operated wife to have a comfortable day, and trusting the Lord to give me the right words to say at our revival prayer meeting this evening.

 

3/31/2021 11:37 AM

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