SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/26/2021 11:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “A Disciple Emulates His Master”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
10:24-25
Message of the verses: “24 “A disciple is
not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. 25 “It is enough for the
disciple that he become as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they
have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his
household!”
Verse
24 is the negative aspect of the truth, while verse 25 then the positive (25a),
and then the consequence (25b).
It
is pretty self-evident that a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave
above his master. Now I want to talk
about one who tried to do this and did not succeed in doing so, and as a result
has plunged the entire universe into a curse from God. Of course I am speaking of Satan and if one
looks at Isaiah 14 then they will see the five “I wills” of Satan who tried to
be over His creator and failed. As we
look at the word disciple we see that it means learner and it is obvious that
the learner is under the teacher in knowledge and wisdom, and also a slave is
beneath his master in social and economic standing. Also by definition, a disciple who is
genuinely a disciple learns from his teacher, and a slave who genuinely is a
slave obeys his master.
John
MacArthur writes “Man’s volition” (decision) “is represented by the figure of
disciple and teacher, and God’s sovereignty is represented by that of slave and
master. The two illustrations unite to
emphasize that the first and most obvious principle of discipleship is
submission.” On my other blog which I am
reposting my SD’s from Ephesians I have been looking at humility, which of
course is the opposite of pride. It
seems to me that pride is the one great reason why people will not submit to
the Lord.
We
have mentioned in earlier SD’s that Matthew’s gospel has the purpose of
revealing Jesus Christ as the divine King of kings, the Messiah and the Son of
God who came to redeem and to eventually rule the world, and for my thinking I
wish that would begin today. Jesus is
the only King, the only Messiah, the only Son of God, the only Savior and the
only Lord. In all of those roles He
demands and is deserving of total submission and as mentioned pride will be the
first thing that gets in our way from submitting totally to the Lord.
We
will conclude with a Biblical story that John MacArthur includes in his
commentary to help us better understand this concept we have been looking
at. “After David finally became king of
Israel, there was still scattered loyalty to the family of Saul, despite that
king’s poor showing as a ruler. Abner,
the commander of Saul’s army, refused to recognize David as king and managed to
temporarily establish Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, as ruler over part of the
kingdom for a period of two years. But
when Ish-bosheth made a foolish and ill-founded accusation against Abner, the
commander came to his senses, finally realizing how unqualified Ish-bosheth was
to rule and how foolish his own thinking had been in opposing David, God’s
chosen and anointed man for leadership (see 2 Samuel 2:8-3:21).
“Matthew
calls the Abners of the world, as it were, to abandon their foolish allegiances
to false leaders and false gods and to become subjects of Jesus Christ, God’s
anointed Savior and Lord.”
10/26/2021 12:08 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment