SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/4/2021 9:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “John’s Self-Denial”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 11:8
Message of the verse: “8 “But what did
you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear soft clothing
are in kings’ palaces!”
One
of the reasons for John’s self-denial had to do with something that was predicted
before his birth, and that was that of a lifelong Nazirite vow. Luke 1:15 “"For
he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor,
and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.” John was not
to drink wine or liquor and was never to cut his hair or touch a dead body,
that was ceremonially unclean. John’s
vow was as stated a lifelong vow unlike many of the Jews who would take this
vow for a certain period of time. Samuel
and also Samson were two who took this Nazirite vow.
John
MacArthur writes “John did not think his self-denial had meritorious blessing
in itself. He was not like the many
ascetics throughout church history who have sought to win God’s favor by feats
of self-inflicted poverty, pain, and humiliation. Ascepsimas wore heavy chains about his neck
that forced him to crawl on his hands and knees. For forty years the monk Besarion slept only
while sitting in a chair. Macarius the
Younger lived without clothes in a swamp for six months and was so severely
bitten by mosquitoes that his body looked leprous. Simeon Stylites, the most famous of the
ancients ascetics, died at the age of seventy-two, after having spent
thirty-seven years sitting atop various pillars, the last of which was
sixty-six feet high.
“When
in 1403 the father of the beautiful, respected, and wealthy Agnes de Rocher
died, she decided to become a religious recluse. From the age of eighteen until the age of
eighty, when she died, Agnes spent her life sealed in a small chamber specially
built into the wall of a Paris cathedral.
A small opening enabled her to hear the mass, receive communion, and
accept gifts of food from friends.”
The
story of John the Baptist is much different as his self-denial was certainly
not to get approval from God, but to serve God in the very unique roll that He
had planned for him and that was to make known that the Messiah was coming.
12/4/2021 9:24 AM
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