SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/15/2022 10:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Display of Power”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
14:18-21
Message of the verses: “18 And He said,
"Bring them here to Me." 19 Ordering the people to sit down on the
grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven,
He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the
disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, 20 and they all
ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces,
twelve full baskets. 21 There were about five thousand men who ate, besides
women and children.”
I wrote the following at the end of yesterday’s
SD: “I will give a short introduction of
what we will be looking at for the next few days as I end this SD. “The great
multitude that day was composed of three groups: the twelve disciples, the
believing remnant among the multitudes, and the vast majority of
unbelievers. In regard to each group we
can discern many spiritual lessons.”
MacArthur
writes “The twelve were established. The twelve disciples were the constant object
of Jesus’ concern, instruction, and training.
It was upon their shoulders that the establishing of His church would
soon fall, and He knew the time of their training for the task was short. From this one incident alone, He taught them
a number of important principles and truths.”
It is at this point that we will begin to look at some of the things
that Jesus was teaching to His disciples.
The
first thing that Jesus taught the disciples was it was good to withdraw from
needless danger, I believe that this speaks of all of them leaving from where
Herod was trying to speak to Jesus and His disciples, and perhaps try to harm
them like he did to John the Baptist. MacArthur
adds “Martyrdom or any other type of suffering that is sought as a form of
self-glory is not endured for the sake of the Lord.” Jesus was also teaching His disciples that
there is a need for rest and solitude, even when in the midst of serving the
Lord. We see from this story that the
Lord desired for He and His disciples to obtain the rest and solitude that they
needed but it was prevented because of the sudden presence of almost 25,000
people coming to not only receive spiritual food, but soon receive physical
food. One thing we need to understand
that while Jesus was on earth He had needs because of Him being human, needs
like eating and sleeping and other things that people need. I don’t believe that it was possible for
Jesus to get sick because He was not born from the seed of man where the sin
nature is passed on, but He surely could get tired as seen in different parts
of the New Testament. He surely could
also die, and that will be seen in our study of Matthew towards the end of it,
but this is something we already know.
The difference of His dying and our dying is that Jesus was in total
control of when He would die, and we are not.
MacArthur
writes “The Twelve learned the importance of spending time away from work with
those with whom one labors. Coworkers
need special time together to support one another and to share needs and
feelings.”
Next
we see that Jesus also confirmed the disciples need to show compassion for
those in need, even when the needy are fickle and undeserving. I suppose that this was a difficult thing for
His disciples to learn as one day James and John wanted to bring fire down from
heaven to devour some what I shall call undeserving people. In this very wonderful story we see that
Jesus took care of the physical needs of all the people even though most of
them were not really interested in the spiritual food that He had given to them
in His message to them, something we really don’t know about as I don’t believe
the content of His message is given, but then I could be wrong about that. MacArthur writes “He taught them that, as
important as rest and leisure are, these must sometimes be sacrificed to meet the
even more important needs of others. The
believer has no inalienable rights to personal freedom and benefits. Everything we have, including our needs and
rights, should be expendable in serving others in Christ’s name (see 1 Cor. 9).”
Jesus
also taught the disciples that just meeting the physical needs of others was
not enough but meeting the spiritual needs is most important, something that in
our day we find what is called a “social gospel,” as some think the physical
issues are enough and forget the spiritual issues, which are more
important. Dealing with the physical issues
can be a way to then speak of the spiritual needs. I am reading a booklet from Baptist Mid
Missions which teaches how missionaries can sometimes get into countries that do
not allow missionaries to get into and so people who are missionaries can go
into these countries as perhaps being an English teacher, or even a doctor, and
then will be able to tell those people about their need for Christ.
We
will look at one more thing that Jesus was teaching His disciples from this
feeding of the 5,000, and that is that things must be done in an orderly and
careful manner, just as God does as seen in 1 Cor. 14:33, 40. “33 for God is not a God of confusion
but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. 40 But all things must be done properly and
in an orderly manner.”
There
is more and that is actually more important than orderliness, and that is
obeying the Lord, even when the reason cannot be seen. MacArthur adds “The Twelve were told to
divide the multitude into groups of fifties and hundreds (Mark 6:40) before
they knew the purpose of doing it. And
after Jesus blessed the loaves and fish and handed them to the disciples, the
food probably did not begin to multiply until it was distributed. The miracle became effective only as the
disciples obeyed Jesus’ command.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to say that there are many things that
can be learned from this wonderful miracle, things that I would not have seen
before without the help of John MacArthur’s sermon and commentaries. Doing things in order requires planning; something
my wife does well, but me not so well.
Trusting the Lord when I cannot see what He is going to do is also
something that requires great faith, something that I am learning.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to stay very close to the Lord
through the reading, studying, and memorizing of His Word in order to learn the
things that He is teaching me, and to be thankful for the things that He is
teaching me even though they are difficult.
6/15/2022 10:53 AM
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