SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/14/2021 11:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Positive Response”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 9:9-10
Message of the verses: “9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a
man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him,
"Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him. 10 Then it happened that
as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax
collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.”
Jesus
was leaving His own city, Capernaum, and as He was leaving He saw a man named
Matthew, but in the other gospels he is called Levi. As we read through the Scriptures we will see
people who have different names, not sure if they are nicknames or not, but
they have different names. Some names
have been changed by God like Abraham and Sarah, Peter’s name was changed from
Simon, but it seems that every time that Jesus had something very serious to
say to Peter that He called him Simon.
As we look at different places in the Gospels we see the names of the twelve
disciples and in different Gospels we see different names for the same
disciples. I guess the bottom line is
that names mean more than perhaps we think.
Levi was the son of Alphaeus as seen in Mark 2:14; cf. Luke 5:27. I am not sure how many are watching the TV
program “The Chosen,” a story about the life of Christ, but actually more about
His disciples. The man that is playing
Matthew seems to me like a “nerd,” at least nerdy. I have to believe that Matthew was a very
smart individual as we can see that from the Gospel he writes, not sure that he
is what I would call a nerd though.
Bottom line I do like the shows and would recommend anyone who has not
seen them to watch them as my wife and I just watched the 4th show
in the 2nd season last Wednesday evening.
John
MacArthur writes “When we realize that Matthew penned these two verses about
himself, we get a glimpse of his modesty and humility. In his own mind, the most important truth
about the writer’s former character is given in the words, ‘sitting in the tax
office.’ To Jews of his day, that single
phrase established Matthew as the most despised, vile and corrupt man in
Capernaum.”
In
MacArthur’s commentary on this section he goes into great detail to describe
exactly what Matthew’s former job entailed and to say the least it was as
described in the above statement, vile and corrupt Matthew was to the Jews of
his day. Think about some of the
characters that Jesus would use to bring about His message of the Gospel and of
the Kingdom of God. We see some of these
men were fishermen, a difficult job at best, and then we see a man who was a Zealot
and we can be sure that this man probably hated the former tax collector in the
group more than the others, although we can be sure that they all hated Matthew
when Jesus first called him. Jesus
Christ chose twelve sinful men to follow Him, and we have to believe that the
reason that they followed Him was because He called each of them. What I can see here in these twelve men is
the essence of what the Gospel can do in the life of a person. I have to believe that if Christ, through His
Holy Spirit and His Word had not called me back in 1974 that my life would be
so much different than it is now, different in that I would be in worse shape,
probably not even married having two
children and seven grandchildren who all love the Lord now. I have to say that I praise the Lord for
what He has done in my life and as I look at these twelve men who were Jesus’
disciples and see how He changed their lives, especially after His resurrection
when the Holy Spirit came on them as seen in Acts chapter two that I can get a glimpse
of what the Lord is doing in my life and in the lives of all who have been
called by Him today.
Lord
willing we will look at the different names of these “tax collectors” or publican the Greek word for “publican”
in our next SD and I think that all will find it very interesting.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to say that the more that I study the
book of Matthew the more excited I get on how the Spirit and Matthew put this
gospel together. I am learning much and
hope that all who follow my blog are learning a lot too.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to learn from the Word of God in
order so that I can do what the Lord has planned for me to do as I try to
patiently learn from His Word each day.
5/14/2021 11:33 AM
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