SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/20/2022 8:57 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-2 “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.”
Jesus knew what was going on in His disciple’s
minds, and He knew what the crowd was up to by wanting to make Him King. To get a better understand of was going on in
the minds of these people who wanted to make Him King one has to read the
account on John’s gospel of what happened after the people caught up with Jesus
and His disciple’s on the next day. This
account is found in the sixth chapter of John.
I have written about this on my blog a few years back when I was
studying John’s gospel. Let me just say
that it is not pretty.
So
we see in order to protect the disciples from things that at this time they did
not understand Jesus sent them away to the other side of the lake.
Again
looking at John’s account he gives the specific destination on “the other side”
as Capernaum (6:24) and Mark says Gennesaret (6:53), which is a small, fertile
plain on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee between Capernaum and
Magdala. The places mentioned in John
and in Mark were very close something like a town and a suburb. Now it was a short trip across the northern tip
of the sea, one that most of the disciples had made many times as many of them
were fishermen. Now I have earlier that
they were reluctant to go and probably had some words with Jesus about it, but
they did what He wanted them to do as this was very important to them, as it
should be important to all of us who follow the Lord.
As
we are looking at our Lord’s divine authority we see that He also demonstrated
it by dismissing the crowd who too probably were reluctant to leave, many of
them because of the freed food they just received, and many have wanted to wait
around for breakfast. Of course the
other reason Jesus demonstrated His divine authority over the crowd is because
they wanted to make Him King.
John
MacArthur writes “Jesus has authority over the destinies of all men, including
their final Judgment (John 5:22). He has
authority over all the supernatural world, including the evil world of Satan
and his demonic fallen angels (Mark 1:27).
He has authority over the holy angels, whom He could at any time have
summoned to His aid (Matt. 26:53). The
crowds who heard Him deliver the Sermon on the Mount recognized that “He was
teaching them as one having authority” (Matt. 7:29). When He sent the Twelve out on their first
mission, He delegated to them part of His own “authority over unclean spirits,
to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness
(Matt. 10:1). And in His Great
Commission, He declared to the eleven who remained, ‘All authority has been
given to Me in heaven and on earth’ (Matt 28:18).
“Jesus
has sovereign control over everything in heaven and on earth. He commands and controls men; He commands and
controls angels, fallen and holy; and He commands and controls nature.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to say that this is a very comforting
thought of Jesus having sovereign control over everything, as this means that
nothing will happen in my life of the life of my family that He is not in
control of. Now this does not mean that
everything that happens to us is necessarily good, but He is still in
control. Sometimes, like sending the
disciples out into a storm as we are learning about will greatly challenge me,
but I still have the confidence that He is in control of even the storms in my
life.
Speaking
of storms one of our former Pastors left our church to take up leadership of a
Christian camp (Sky View) near Millersburg and after a few weeks on the job
after preaching in some of our sister churches on “count it all joy” from the
book of James a huge storm came through the 175 acre camp and destroyed cars,
and even some of the buildings this past Monday. Praise the Lord no one was hurt but the clean
up was a great big job to be sure as the entire .6 mile driveway had trees
across it the entire way. Our Lord was
certainly in control over that storm, and so I praise the Lord that no one was
hurt in that storm that was sent through Sky View.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the Lord who is always working in my
heart to cause what I do and what I think to bring glory to Him.
6/20/2022 9:32 AM
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