SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/12/2021 9:46 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Barrier of Personal Riches”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 8:21
Message of the
verse: “21
Another of the disciples said to Him, "Lord, permit me first to go and
bury my father.’”
We are looking at the second
superficial disciple in this verse, one who did not want to risk losing his
inheritance by committing himself fully to Jesus. The word “fully” seems to me to be an
important word as we look at these two so-called disciples. Jesus tell him the following “Follow Me; and
allow the dead to bury their own dead.”
This statement along with the one about the foxes and the birds seems at
first glance to be nonsensical expressions, but when one digs deeper we can see
that they are not. MacArthur writes “It
meant ‘Let the world take care of the things of the world.’ The spiritually dead can take care of their
own things.” We can see that what Jesus
said has spiritual meaning.
MacArthur points out that the
following statement comes from Luke 9:60, a parallel account of this
section: “"Allow the dead to bury
their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.’” If this man were to follow Jesus his
responsibility would be to go and proclaim everywhere the Kingdom of God as we
see in this verse from Luke’s account.
We could actually say that he was to go out and proclaim this good news
to the “spiritually dead.” As believers
we are not to mimic the world, which it seems is happening in many denominations
today, and that is very sad to say. Our responsibility
is not to follow and mimic the world but to be a witness to the world in the
name of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There is another similarity in this
disciple and the scribe and that is that they both disappear without further
mention, another sad thing to report. We
can surmise that neither one of these men wanted to have a discussion with
Jesus about what He is telling them.
This last man is similar to the “rich young ruler” found later on in
Matthew 19:16-22, and in a similar way that man lost his enthusiasm for the
things of the Lord.
In following Jesus a believer is to
have self-denial, to deny our self, to pick you our cross and follow Jesus wherever
He leads us and do whatever He guides us to do for the cause of Christ.
I mentioned in an earlier SD that in
the parallel account of Luke’s gospel he tells of a third man who came to Jesus
on this occasion and made a profession of discipleship. Luke 9:61 “Another also said, "I will
follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.’” MacArthur adds “As with the other two men,
this man’s statement seems perfectly reasonable. It would take but a few days, or a few weeks
at the most for him to pay his parents the simple courtesy of saying good-bye.” There was a similar thing that happened in a
scene from the second year of “The Chosen” as a woman wanted to follow Jesus
and her father followed her until he spoke with Jesus, and once that happened
it was okay.
As we go back to this man from Luke’s
gospel we see like the others that Jesus knew this man’s heart and that his
motivation was weak and his loyalty was divided. This man was not yet ready to give himself
wholeheartedly to Jesus as Lord. I have
mentioned this in earlier SD’s and that there are some people who only want
Jesus as their Savior and then go about doing things that they want to do and
treat Him like a safety net when they live a life that would not be pleasing to
Him. I know for myself that it took a
while after I became a believer to realize that not only was Jesus my Savior,
but was also my Lord whom I desire to follow.
Lord willing we will talk more about
this third man in our SD for tomorrow.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have
learned from this section that I am to continually learn to trust the Lord to
by my Lord and not to always do what I want to do on my own.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to
trust the Lord in my praying for revival in my life, our churches lives and the
churches in our nation.
4/12/2021 10:21
AM
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