SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/27/2021 9:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-7 “Intro to Matt. 10:2a)
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
10:2a
Message of the
verse: “Now
the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon, who is called
Peter,”
I want to review something we looked
at in an earlier SD, and that is that the third phase of the disciples’
training under Jesus was what we perhaps could be called their internship, and
this began immediately after their conversion and calling but preceded their
final commissioning and sending after or Lord’s ascension seen in Acts 1:8. We will see that it is this third phase of
training that occupies Matthew in chapter 10.
It is by this time that the disciples under Jesus’ instruction for
probably about 18 months, however they had not participated directly in the
ministry. As we have been studying
chapters 8-9 we see that they were only observers and learners, so now they
began to have a direct involvement as the Lord will send them out two by two as
seen in Mark 6:7. “And He summoned the
twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the
unclean spirits.” This sending out was
so that they could try their wings in the work for which Jesus had given them authority
to do.
We have already mentioned that the
apostles were essential for the future of the Christian faith, because they
were the only ones called and empowered to build the foundation of God’s only
plan for telling the world of redemption through His Son. We stated that this was God’s only plan, and
when you come down to think about that God only needs one plan in order to
accomplish something, unlike humans who may try something and then see that it
does not work and so they try something else.
When one looks at this plan that God has for the Christian faith to get
off the ground and then continue working until Jesus comes at the rapture one
may think from a human perspective that it won’t work. We know that Satan has tried to stop this
plan since God implemented it, but we also know that it will never happen, and
when Satan turns up the heat on believers that is when the Word gets out all
the more, so the bottom line is that God’s plan will be fulfilled even though
at times it seems like it is failing.
Now as Jesus sends out His apostles
it is time for them to be more than mere hearers and observers, so we see that they
were given “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every
kind of disease and every kind of sickness as seen in Matthew 10:1. However their first responsibility was to
preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand,’ as seen in verse
seven. When Jesus came on the scene and
began to preach and teach He also healed and cast out demons, raised the dead
and did many miraculous works. One of
the reasons He did all of this was to show that He was and is the Messiah, the
coming One from the Lord. The apostles
were able to do this as He sent them out and were able to do this once Jesus
went back to heaven because they were empowered by the Holy Spirit. They did it for the same reason that Jesus
did and that was to show that God was the One sending them out. The point I am trying to make is that the
gifts that these apostles had in the early church were what we call “sign gifts”
and these are not available today. Our
Pastor spoke of praying for a person who was very ill and a week or so later
God answered the prayers that he was lifting up to the Lord. The formerly ill person thought it was
because of his prayers that the healing took place, but he quickly said that
this was all of God. We pray for
healings and sometimes God grants our requests, but if He doesn’t He is still
God and has a better plan. There is a
movement that has been going on in the world and in our country where people
get things mixed up thinking that they have the healing powers that the
apostles have, which they don’t have as none have it since the last apostle
died. The most important thing a
believer can do is to do what the apostles did and that is to preach the gospel
for when a person is saved they will eventually go to heaven which is far more
important than having a healed body and not understand the gospel and end up in
hell.
The writer of Hebrews asked “How
shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, after it was at the first
spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also
bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles
and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will” (Hebrews 2:3-4). It was the Lord who was the first preacher of
the gospel, and it was the apostles, the ones who heard who confirmed what He
preached, and God the Father confirmed their testimony by the divinely
empowered “signs and wonders…various miracles and … gifts of the Holy Spirit”
that accompanied their preaching. It was
the word of the apostles that was miraculously attested as they laid down the
foundation for the church.
Looks like we will have at least one
more SD for this introduction, but probably it will take two more as we still
have much ground to cover.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Keep the
most important things first, and the most important thing is the salvation of
souls, for without that people will spend a Christless eternity.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Pray the
Lord of the harvest will continue to send forth laborers in order to complete
His church very soon.
7/27/2021 9:50
AM
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