SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/15/2021 10:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “A Disciple Offers His Own Life”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
10:38-39
Message of the verses: “38 “And he who
does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 “He who has
found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall
find it.”
John MacArthur begins this section with these words: “Love of one’s life is often the greatest
hindrance to full commitment to Christ.
Yet Jesus calls His disciples to total self-denial, including, if
necessary, sacrifice to the point of death.”
Now
if a person was living at the time of Christ in the Roman Empire, and
especially in Palestine, they would not misunderstand what Jesus said when He
said “And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” Why would they not misunderstand what Christ
was saying? The cross symbolized the
extremes of both excruciating pain and heartless cruelty; but above all it
symbolized death and everyone who lived in these areas of the world knew that and
probably feared the kind of death that the cross would bring on a person. MacArthur adds “Only a few years before Jesus
spoke these words, a zealot named Judas had gathered together a band of rebels
to fight the Roman occupation forces.
The insurrection was easily quelled, and in order to teach the Jews a
lesson, the Roman general Varus ordered the crucifixion of over two thousand Jews. Their crosses lined the roads of Galilee from
one end to the other.”
The
twelve apostles of Jesus knew immediately that to take their crosses and follow
after our Lord meant to abandon themselves without reservation to Jesus’
lordship, with no consideration of cost—even of life itself. They would also learn, if they had not
learned it before this that the Lord was in complete control their lives and
they would not die until the Lord’s appointed time of their death.
What
is Jesus really talking about here and what is He not talking about here? “No matter how terrible they may be, the
hardships and tragedies of human living that often befall Christians are not
the crosses of which Jesus speaks. Such
things as a cruel spouse, a rebellious child, a debilitating or terminal
illness, the loss of job, or destruction of a house by a tornado or flood may
strongly test a believer’s faith; but those are not crosses.”
“The
cross of a believer is not a mystical or spiritual identification with the
cross of Christ or some ‘crucified life’ idea.
Such concepts are foreign to the context and the cross of Christ was yet
future when Jesus spoke here. The
disciples would hear cross and think only of physical death.”
So
what does the cross mean? The cross is a
willing sacrifice of everything one has, and this includes life, for the sake
of our Lord. This is something that ,
like the Lord Himself, a believer must take on himself when it is thrust upon
him by the unbelieving world because of the relationship that one had to Jesus
Christ.
There
is more here in what the Lord is saying as He goes on to explain that no
sacrifice for Him compares with what is received from Christ. He explains by saying that the person who
thinks that he “has found his life” in the things of the world “shall lose it.” This is surely true because earthly life is only
temporary, and the person who holds on to it above all else holds on to
something that he cannot possibly keep, and so in the process of this he will
forfeit the eternal life that he cannot lose.
Jim Elliot, the martyred missionary from 1956 said shortly before he was
killed the following “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what
he cannot lose.” This statement from Jim
Elliot shows us the meaning of what Christ said when He said “and he who has
lost his life for My sake shall find it.”
We
close with another quote from John Bunyan on what he said before the magistrate
to be sentenced to prison: “Sir, the law
of Christ hath provided two ways of obeying:
the one to do that which I in my conscience do believe I am bound to do
actively; and where I cannot obey in actively, there I am willing to lie down
and suffer what they shall do unto me.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Lord willing, tomorrow I will begin the last
section from this 10th chapter of Matthew, something that I began
July 12th of this year. A lot
has happened since I began looking at this chapter. We have gone over stories of each of Jesus’
disciples, including Judas. My wife and
I were sick with covid 19 for about three weeks and during that time I missed
doing my Spiritual Diaries, along with missed teaching our Sunday school class
for three weeks. I have learned much
about Jesus’ disciples and much about what Jesus was teaching to His disciples
before He sent them out on the first mission’s trip. Learning that the things that He said to them
telescopes all the way to the tribulation period was something that I truly was
blessed on learning, as I have always been interested on the end times.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the Lord if it is His desire that someday
I will have to suffer for the cause of Christ that He, through His Spirit will
give me the courage to do what He desires for me to do to serve Him.
11/15/2021 11:09 AM
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