SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/14/2021 7:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “A Disciple Forsakes His Family”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
10:34-37
Message of the verses: “34 “Do not think that
I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 “For
I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 “and ‘a man’s enemies will
be those of his own household.’ 37 “He who loves father or mother
more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me
is not worthy of Me.”
I
realize that this section has been a difficult one to study, but the truth is
that becoming a Christian requires affirming the lordship of Christ to the
point where you are willing to forsake everything else. Becoming a Christian is not simply raising a
hand signing a card, or walking down an aisle and then declaring love for
Jesus. Salvation is by faith alone,
apart from any works at all; but faith that is genuine will be manifested in a
commitment that cannot be swayed by any influence, and that to include family
and friends. When I became a believer I
had many friends that I hung around with and we did some “bad” things, and I
have to say that it took me a while to just stop hanging around them, but as
the Lord became more and more important to me as I began to walk with Him, then
that made it easier to not hang around with them. I can pretty much know the date that I
stopped hanging around with them as it was the night before my daughter was
born, December 22, 1976. Now it is true
that the Christian is to love his family with self-sacrificing love. It is true that Christian husbands and wives
are to love each other and their children with unreserved devotion. Also Christian children are to love, respect,
and care for their parents as unto the Lord.
But a believer’s commitment to Christ is so profound and far-reaching than
any relationship that endangers that relationship must be sacrificed if
necessary.
John
MacArthur talks about John Bunyan in his commentary and we will finish this SD
with what he wrote and then what Bunyan wrote.
“John Bunyan was told to quit preaching or be thrown in prison. He knew that if he went to prison, his wife
and children would be left destitute.
They had little enough to eat and wear when he was free; but if he were imprisoned,
they would be totally impoverished. Yet
he knew he must preach the gospel God had called him to preach. Because he refused to stop preaching, he was
imprisoned; and from his cell he wrote,
‘The parting with my wife
and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the flesh
from my bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great
mercies, but also because I would have often brought to my mind the many
hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was like to meet with,
should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my
heart than all I have besides. Oh, the
thought of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under would break my
heart to pieces…But yet, recalling myself, I thought I, I must venture all with
God though it goeth to the quick to leave you.
Oh, I saw in this condition, I was a man who was pulling down his house
upon the head of his wife and children; yet though I, I must do it. I must do it.’”
I
have to say that the world has been blessed with the things that John Bunyan
wrote while in prison, but as we can see it was most difficult on him to have
to leave his family.
11/14/2021 8:04 AM
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