SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/24/2022 7:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The
Qualities of Great Faith”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt15:22-27
Message of the verses: “22 And behold, a
Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying,
"Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly
demon-possessed." 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples
came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, "Send her away, for she is
shouting out after us." 24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25 But she came and began
to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" 26 And He answered
and said, "It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the
dogs." 27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the
crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’”
What we have going on here is actually an
introduction to these verses and then in our next SD we will begin to look at individual
verses from this quotation above.
It
was Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman that we see a story of faith,
faith which our Lord called Great Faith in verse 28. MacArthur writes “Great faith is, of course,
a relative term. This woman’s faith was
not great because it was stronger or more sincere or mature than the faith of
many Jews who believed in Christ but because it was based on so little
light. When Peter’s faith faltered and
he began to sink into the water, Jesus referred to it as ‘little faith’ (Matt.
14:31). In general character it was
greater than this woman’s faith and surely greater than the faith of the other
eleven disciples, who did not even attempt to walk on the water, but it was not
as strong as I should have been for that situation. Peter was a Jew and therefore had the
heritage of God’s Word and special blessing.
More than that, he had lived for nearly two years in intimate fellowship
with the Son of God. He had seen
virtually every miracle Jesus performed and heard virtually every word He
preached and taught. He had saving faith
in Jesus as his Lord and Savior and had left everything to follow Him, but his
great privilege and advantage was no guarantee that, under severe testing his
faith might not be reduced to relatively little.”
Now
we have to compare this Canaanite woman as she on the other hand, had been
raised in a pagan culture that had been renowned for its wickedness and
vileness. After all she from a country
or people that God had told Joshua to completely defeat and kill as seen in
Deut. 7:2 where Moses said and when the LORD your God delivers them before you
and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no
covenant with them and show no favor to them.”
Moses said this but it was Joshua’s job to do it. This woman had no heritage of God’s Word, God’s
blessing, or of His tabernacle, temple, priesthood, or sacrifices. Therefore, because she believed so much
relative to so little revelation, Jesus called her faith great faith (Matt.
15:28). MacArthur writes “And from her
story we can propose five general
qualities that mark all great faith: it
is repentant, properly directed, reverent, persistent, and humble.”
7/24/2022 8:08 AM
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