SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/18/2021 11:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Negative Response”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 9:11
Message of the verse: “11 When the Pharisees
saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating
with the tax collectors and sinners?’”
I
suppose that what we are looking at in today’s SD is typical of the Pharisees
who have been against what the Messiah has been doing since He came on the
scene. I want to stress that there is a
great deal of difference between the Pharisees’ traditions and what was in the
Old Testament that they were reading. At
the end of the New Testament we read that those who change what is written will
be in grave trouble and that is exactly what the Pharisees were doing as their
traditions were more important to them than what the Bible has to say. Why would one want to change what God has
said? I suppose they do it to make
themselves more comfortable knowing that they can’t follow what God has to say
so they change it to their own liking. “"For
I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the
scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20).
I
think that perhaps the Pharisees were also upset because Jesus never sat down
to eat with them like He did with the people who really needed Him. MacArthur adds “If He were really a man of
God, they reasoned, why had He not given a banquet for them, the exemplars and
self-appointed custodians of religious purity?”
As
we read this verse we can see that the Pharisees did not confront Jesus head-on
but they cornered His disciples. The
question that they asked Jesus disciples was “Why is your Teacher eating with
tax collectors and sinners?” All I can
say is that these men surely thought too much of themselves, something that
Paul warns of in Romans 12:3 “For through the grace given to me I say to
everyone among you not to
think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have
sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” Now this verse is sandwiched between the very
famous first and second verses of Romans 12:1-2 and then the verses that go on
to talk about Spiritual gifts. Paul is saying to first of all give yourself to
the Lord as a spiritual sacrifice, and then don’t think to highly of yourselves
for he then goes on to say that you all have different spiritual gifts which
come from the Holy Spirit and that these gifts are just that gifts as you did
nothing on your own to earn or receive them so don’t get big-headed about them,
and this is exactly what the Pharisees were doing, but they were doing it
because they thought on their own that they were better than the ones who were
eating with Jesus at this time.
I
have to remind you that this is at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry that the
Pharisees were getting on Him, and it will only get worse as Jesus’ ministry
continues. Now as we look back at what
Jesus had been doing, things that Matthew points out were what the Messiah was
prophesied to be doing, things that will happen in the Kingdom which is what
Matthew’s gospel is talking about, that is the King and His Kingdom. All the Pharisees would have to do is to look
at what Jesus was doing, to check things from the OT to see that what He was
doing was what He was suppose to be doing, but even if they would have read
about this in the OT they still would have been blinded because of their own egos
and traditions.
MacArthur
concludes his comments on this section: “The
Pharisees did not think they needed God’s forgiveness and were certain that
tax-gatherers and sinners did not deserve it.
Their ‘ministry’ was not to help but to judge, not to restore but to
condemn. They wanted no part of a Man
who contrarily, (defiantly) condemned their self-righteousness and offered
forgiveness to obvious sinners.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Not to think more highly of myself than I
should. “I can do all things through
Christ who gives me strength.” Sometimes
you have to just be reminded that all that you can do for the cause of Christ
has been given to you through the work of the Holy Spirit to do from eternity
past “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so
that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
My Steps of Faith for Today: To do the things that God has prepared me to
do beforehand so that I will walk in them.
5/18/2021 11:38 AM
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