SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/6/2022 8:54 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Receptive Hearer”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
13:23
Message of the verse: “23 “And the one on
whom seed was sown on the good
soil, this is the man who hears
the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a
hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’”
We continue looking at the seed that fell into the
soil that was prepared, and is the only seed in this parable that speaks of
saving faith and shows it because of the fruit that it gives.
Let
us begin by looking at one of my very favorite Psalms, Psalm 1:1-3 “1 How
blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in
the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And
in His law he meditates day and night. 3 He will be like a tree firmly
planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does
not wither; And in whatever he does, he
prospers.
We see here that the Psalmist delights in the Word of God so much that
he meditates on it day and night which causes him to be like a tree that is
planted by streams of water and this provides the nourishment that is needed to
cause the tree to grow and produce fruit, which then causes him to prosper. Now let us look at John 15 :1-5 “1 "I am
the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He
takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it
may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word which
I have spoken to you. 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless
you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me
and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” We can see from these verses that those who
are related to Christ will produce fruit, as at times believers need to be
pruned in order to produce even more fruit.
He prunes believers because He loves us.
Not as we look at Ephesians 2:10, another of my very favorite verses we
will see in the verses before that that we are not saved by bearing fruit or by
any other good work, because we cannot bear spiritual fruit or do any truly
good work until after we are saved. In
verse ten we see that we are saved for fruit bearing: “10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in
them.” Just as our salvation was
prepared for us in eternity past so the good works that we do for the Lord were
also prepared for us to do in eternity past and as we study the Word of God,
listen to sermons and seek to find out what it is that the Lord has prepared
for us to do He will show us through His Holy Spirit that lives within us.
John
MacArthur writes “Not only does Jesus assure us that true believers bear fruit
but that they bear it in great abundance: some a hundredfold, some sixty, and
some thirty. Those figures represent phenomenal
yields of 10,000 percent, 6,000 percent, and 3,000 percent. Believers differ in fruit-bearing because
they differ in commitment to obedience, but all are profusely fruitful.” As I look at these passages here from
Matthew, from John, and from Ephesians I think about a verse in 1 Corinthians
which talks about the rewards that believers will get as the work for the cause
of Christ in producing fruit. I think,
as I have said that in eternity past that God has prepared work for us to do,
work that will produce fruit and as we do the work that He prepared for us in
the power of the Holy Spirit, and do it faithfully our rewards in heaven will
then be determined on how we did that work.
As a believer I can do nothing good on my own, in my own strength, but
must rely on the Spirit of God to guide me into the work that He has prepared
for me to do, so in the end it is all about God, and in the end it will be God
who receives the glory for me doing the things that He has prepared for me to
do. My example, as always is my Lord
Jesus Christ who followed exactly the things that His Father desired for Him to
do while on earth and thus in the 17th chapter of John’s gospel we
see He said “4 "I glorified You on
the earth, having
accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father,
glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the
world was.” Jesus accomplished His Word that the Father wanted Him to do and
now He will return to the glory that He had before He had come to earth, and in
truth He will be different than when He left heaven to do this work for He is
not the God-Man and knows what it means to be a man, and for that I am very
thankful because He knows what I go through each and everyday.
4/6/2022 9:29 AM
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