SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/3/2021 10:15 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Faith”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 9:2a
Message of the verse: “2 And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed.
Seeing their faith,”
I
think from time to time that we remember that not only was Jesus God come in
human flesh, but He was also the perfect Man, and because of that He became
tired and weary from the things that He was doing which as we have written
about were exactly what the Father had planned for Him to do. In Matthew 8:18 we read “Now when Jesus saw a
crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea.”
Jesus was taking His disciples away from the crowds to get a break from
the constant being around so many people, and they needed it.
As we look at the account that we
are going to study in these first 8 verses of John chapter 9, we can look at
both Mark’s and Luke’s gospels to see many more details. Again we have to realize that each gospel
writer had certain people that they were writing to and also certain themes
that they had to stick to. We are very
fortunate to have available all four gospels to see the different things that
were written as we study different events found in the different gospel
accounts. One thing that we have
mentioned was that Jesus had probably made his home in the house of Peter, who
lived in Capernaum which was Jesus home town in the first part of His
ministry. “When He had come back to Capernaum
several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home” (Mark 2:1). A common house in Palestine had two stories
and it is likely that the room with the overflow crowd was on the second floor,
which is where most visiting and socializing were done. “And many were gathered together, so that
there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word
to them” (Mark 2:2). We can remember that
Jesus ate what is called “The Last Supper” in a house with two stories to
it. Now the roof of the house was often
uses as a place for relaxation in the cool of the cool of the day, and it was
also used frequently for sleeping on hot nights. There were outside stairs that went all the
way to the top of the roof to make it convenient to get to the second story.
We
know that there was a large crowd there to hear Jesus preach and teach and so
this man who was a paralytic could not really get to the main part of the house
so that he could see Jesus as there were four men carrying him on some kind of
a cot or bed. John MacArthur writes “No
wheelchairs or other such equipment were available to those who could not walk,
and they had to rely on others to carry them around. Those who are lame have always suffered
social stigma and neglect, but in the Jewish culture f Jesus’ day, the stigma
was made immeasurably worse by the belief of most Jews thought all disease and
affliction was the direct result of someone’s sin. The idea was common even in the days of Job,
who may have lived as early as the time of Abraham. Eliphaz asked Job, ‘Who ever perished being
innocent?’ Job 4:7), and Bildad said to
him, ‘If your sons sinned against Him, then He delivered them into the power of
their transgression” (8:4). The same attitude
was clearly reflected in the disciples’ question to Jesus as they passed a man
who had been blind from birth: “Rabbi,
who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?’”
There
is no doubt that since man sinned in the garden which caused all people to be
born with a sin nature, thus the curse of sin is seen in all of the universe,
that all sickness is the cause of the original sin, but that does not mean that
all sickness is a result of a person’s personal sin. If a believer falls to the sin of being drunk
and wrecks his car then that would be entirely his fault as sin as its
consequences.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is always my desire to live a holy and
righteous life, but with all believers, there are times when I fall into
temptation and sin. We all do, but it is
my desire to keep a short list with the Lord and that is why I begin my prayers
each day that I use the prayer list that I use most everyday with the following
“23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24
And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way”
(Psalm 139:23-24). I have learned from
the Bible written in Sweden that the word for “search” is “ransack.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to
trust the Lord to bring revival in my life, and to trust Him that He is in
total control of the prayer meeting we have each Wednesday evening.
5/3/2021 10:49 AM
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