Sunday, June 19, 2022

PT-1 "Proof of His Divine Authority" (Matt. 14:22-23)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/19/2022 8:08 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                   Focus:  PT-1 “Proof of His Divine Authority”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 14:22-23

 

            Message of the verses:  22 Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. 23 After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.”

 

            I want to begin with a portion of the quotation that I wrote from my last SD which shows us where we are heading as we move through verses 22-33 of Matthew 14.  “Within the events of Matthew 14:22-33 are five demonstrations, or proofs of Jesus’ deity that led to the disciples confession.”  The confession that MacArthur is speaking of comes from verse 33 “33 And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "You are certainly God’s Son!"  So this is where we are heading as we move through these verses as we begin to look at the first of five demonstrations of Jesus’ deity.

 

            This first affirmation of Jesus’ deity on this occasion was His demonstration of divine authority, and this is seen from the fact that  He made the disciples get into the boat.”  This strongly suggests that the disciples were reluctant to leave Him, and it could be that they even argued with Him about leaving, but this was His plan for them and they would understand it before the night would be over. 

 

            We have to remember what the disciples had just gone through, and that was that Jesus had just done a mighty miracle that they had a small part in by passing out food to probably some 25,000 people, and now the crowd wanted to make Jesus their King.  I have written from time to time about what it was that drove Judas to cause him to betray Jesus, and that was something that had to do with Jesus being King right there on the spot in order to destroy the Romans who were ruling over Israel.  The thing about this is that all of His disciples must have felt the same way, and once they saw the crowd’s desire to make Him King they had to be excited thinking that it would not be long until Jesus would rebel against Rome and they would be a big part of His Kingdom on earth.  Now Jesus had just sent the crowd away and then He sends the Twelve into a boat, which we know what will happen as they will run into a storm and Jesus will walk on the water to them saving them out of the storm, which will probably cause them to forget about the experience that they had just gone through. 

 

            The thing about all of this is that Jesus was truly King, King of His Kingdom which is the main theme of Matthew’s gospel, and it would take the disciples a little longer to understand the truth of this, and what they were about to go through was the first of many trials that the Lord would send them through, but as Jesus said to them “I will never leave you nor forsake you.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I go through my life as a believer in Jesus Christ there have been times of great trouble as there are for all believers, but to understand from this section of the disciples being sent into a storm, and also as I have just finished listening to the book of Job shows me that I will not always understand all about the storms that I will go through, but that through these storms I must continue to trust the Lord to get me through these storms and to teach me as I am going through them to just trust Him.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord as I teach from the 10th chapter of Hebrews in our Sunday school class this morning that the Spirit of God will go before me so that those who are there will learn some important truths about apostasy.

 

6/19/2022 8:33 AM

 

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