SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/31/2021 11:40 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Jesus Was Accessible”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 9:18
Message
of the verse: “18 While He was saying these things to them, a synagogue
official came and bowed down before Him, and said, "My daughter has just
died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.’”
Sometimes
we see that when a person came and bowed down to Jesus that it was not sincere,
as in the case of James and John’s mother who bowed down to Jesus wanting Him
to grant in His kingdom that her two sons may sit, one on the right and one on
the left. This truly was insincere on
her part.
This is
not the case with Jairus as he proved his humility and sincerity, as what he
wanted from Jesus was to bring his child back from the dead. He was looking for Jesus power and asked him
in humility. MacArthur writes “Whatever
thoughts he may have had about the reaction of his fellow religious leaders, he
knew that Jesus was the only source of help for his daughter, who had just
died. Nothing else mattered as he came
to the Lord in anguish and utter desperation.”
Once again we must remember that Matthew is recording this miracle and
the others found in chapters 8-9 as proof that Jesus was indeed the Messiah,
the King and when His kingdom came then these types of things would
happen.
We
mentioned that from Mark’s and Luke’s account that when Jairus first came to
Jesus that his daughter was on the verge of death but not dead. Then a short time later he got the message that she had indeed died and that he was
not to trouble the teacher anymore.
However this did not stop him as we see in Matthew’s account.
I want to quote the following from
MacArthur’s commentary as it is something that I did not understand
before. “The daughter was twelve years
old, in the first year of her womanhood according to Jewish custom. The day after his thirteenth birthday, a
Jewish boy was recognized as a man, and a day after her twelfth birthday, a
Jewish girl was recognized as a woman. Jairus’s daughter had just come into the
flower of womanhood, but to her father she was still his little girl, whose
life was dearer to him than his own. The
sunshine of her childhood had turned into the shadow of death.”
There was nothing during this time
in the Jewish community that could have prevented his daughter to live, to be
cured. It seems that in the life of
Jairus that he had been thinking about Jesus, knowing that He had done miracles
around their town, and so it seems that the Spirit of God had been working in
the heart of Jairus that he believed that Jesus could do for his daughter what
needed to be done, that is raise her from the dead as he showed evidence of this
when he said to Jesus “Come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.” His faith was without reservation or a hint
of doubt. Jairus swallowed his pride and
his fear as he was not caring what his neighbors, his family, or even his
fellow religionists thought. There was
nothing or nobody to stop him from coming to see Jesus.
Jairus was neither the first nor the
last that came to Jesus because of a great need. It is often that great tragedy drives a
person to Christ. There are some people who feel no need in their lives to come
to Jesus as they seem to have everything taken care of on their own. I know people like this and so perhaps it is
a good time to pray that something would come into their lives to drive them to
the Savior. When a person is telling
others about Christ the first step is to convince them of their need of
salvation and therefore of Christ as the only means for obtaining it.
We can see that in the life of
Jairus that he already was convinced that human resources could not save the
life of his daughter, and he was also ready convinced of Christ’s power that He
could do it. It is possible that while
she was just sick that he did not want to find Jesus, but once he found out
that she would not recover that he would go to Jesus for help. Now at this time he knew that it was only
through the power of Jesus that his daughter could live again. MacArthur adds that “he did not come
primarily to adore or glorify Jesus but to seek life for his daughter and relief
of pain and anguish for himself. But he
trusted in Jesus for that help, and he found Him to be accessible.” There we have that word again, “accessible,”
a word that as mentioned before has brought new insight into my life, knowing that
Jesus will always have time for me, and all I have to do is talk to Him about
concerns, and also to praise Him for being there for me all of the time.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am
thankful that my Lord is always accessible to me to talk to through prayer and
then to praise Him for always being there for me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord to give me insights into teaching the introduction to the book of Hebrews
this coming Sunday in our Sunday school class.
5/31/2021
12:14 PM
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