SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/7/2021 11:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Barrier of Personal Comfort”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
8:18-22
Message of the verses: “18 Now when Jesus
saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the
sea. 19 Then a scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow
You wherever You go." 20 Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes and
the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay
His head." 21 Another of the disciples said to Him, "Lord, permit me
first to go and bury my father." 22 But Jesus said to him, "Follow
Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.’”
I
want us to remember that not only was Jesus God, but human too and from time to
time He needed to rest for many people seemed to be around Him seeking healing
and other things, but unfortunately not seeking spiritual things from Him. So he needed some time to get away from the
crowds and so He “gave orders to depart to the other side” of the lake which is
what they did.
MacArthur
writes “When Jesus decided to cross the lake, the issue of commitment was
pressed for several men who apparently were reevaluating their relationship to
Him. From Mark we learn that some of the
crowd got into other boats in order to go across the lake with Jesus (4:36),
but three men (a third is mentioned in Luke 9) obviously did not want to leave
and they approached Jesus just before He departed.”
Let
us begin to look at the first man who was a “certain scribe,” who “said to Him,
‘Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.’”
That really sound good as far as looking at in a human perspective, but
remember that Jesus knows all men and knows what they are even thinking,
something that should put fear into our hearts from time to time, as we seek
forgiveness for the sinful thoughts and thankfulness for the times when what we
are thinking brings glory to our Lord.
Now this man did not ask Jesus a question so as humans we can only guess
at his motives for saying what he was saying.
MacArthur adds “As s scribe he would have broken with the majority of
his fellow scribes had he become a dedicated disciple of Jesus. He knew such a decision would be costly, and
perhaps he wanted to see how Jesus reacted to his declaration of allegiance.” Now as a human when we look at a scribe
wanting to be a part of Jesus group we would see red flags come up, but again
Jesus knew his heart condition. We read
in the book of Acts that eventually some of the Pharisees became believers in
Jesus for their salvation, and I suppose that brought up some red flags with
the Apostles.
As
we look at the scribes in Jesus day they were typically teachers and not
followers of teachers, and they were especially reluctant to follow a teacher
such as Jesus Christ, who not only was not “educated” in a rabbinic school but
actually One who denounced the traditions they held untouchable.
The
Greek word for teacher that this scribe used was didaskalos and this therefore as a considerable concession in and
of itself, coming from a scribe, and we can believe that the crowd and the
disciples of Jesus would have been impressed that Jesus was spoken of favorably
by one of the Jewish leaders. Now
remember when Peter told Jesus that he would never betray Him? Well in Peter’s own mind he felt that he
never would, but he did. This man in his
own mind felt that he would follow Jesus, but in the end did not as neither
Peter nor that man knew himself as well as they thought they knew themselves. It
happens to all of us doesn’t it?
We
will continue looking at this first man in our next SD, Lord willing.
4/7/2021 11:32 AM
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