SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/28/2021 11:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “A Disciple Emulates His Master”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
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!”
We
begin this SD by talking about “Beelzebul” or as sometimes spelled “Belzebub”
which probably means “lord of the flies,” and it was later changed to
Baalzebul, “lord of the dwelling.” Now
it was because he was an especially despicable deity, his name had long been
used by the Jews as an epithet for Satan.
MacArthur
writes “Jesus’ point was that, if people called Him Satan, they would surely
call His disciples the same thing. The Pharisees
had already done precisely that when they accused Jesus of casting ‘out demons
by the ruler of the demons’ (Matt. 9:34), who was often referred to as
Beelzebul (Mark 3:22; cf. Matt. 12:24)”
As I look at these statements about Jesus being accused of doing His
work by the power of Satan, I am reminded that once this happened in the
ministry of our Lord that He then pretty much stopped His ministry with the
people and began to concentrate more on His disciples.
Now
once again I want to talk about our Lord’s message to His disciples as being
telescoped into the future for all of His disciples, for the things that He is
saying here will not all be fulfilled during this first missionary trip that
His apostles will be taking. The things
that He is saying, and I want to talk about the warnings that He is making are also repeated in different parts of the
four gospels, as this was obviously something very important that the Lord
wants us to understand.
MacArthur
concludes this section by writing “Thus the call to discipleship is the call to
be like Christ, including being treated like Christ. To people who are truly seeking God, the
lives of His faithful saints are beautiful and attractive. It is often the Christlike qualities of love,
joy, peace, and kindness in Christians that attract unbelievers to the
Lord. The more we emulate Christ, the
more attractive we will become to those God is calling to Himself. But at the same time we will become more
unattractive to those who reject God.
Because they want nothing of Him, they will want nothing of us.”
Spiritual
meaning of the verses: One of the things that I have been praying
for over the last many months is revival, and a very small prayer group has
been started in our church on Wednesday evenings after our regular prayer
group. I have become convinced that if
there is to be a revival in the church in our country that that will led to
persecution which is what Jesus is saying in the sections we have recently been
looking at. Persecution is not something
any believer wants to be a part of but during the times when persecution has
happened in the church it has grown and become stronger.
My Steps of Faith for Today: If the Lord is going to bring persecution
into my lives my prayer is that I will be found faithful.
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