SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/17/2022 8:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Intro to Matt. 16:21-23”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 16:21-23
Message of the verses: “21 From that time
Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and
suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be
killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22 And Peter took Him aside and
began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never
happen to You." 23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!
You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’”
You don’t have to open you Bible too far to read
about how man began to do his interests and no God’s interest. The third chapter of Genesis speaks of the
spiritual fall of man, doing man’s interest, not God’s. Let us look at Isaiah to see what he has to
say about this subject. “8 “For My
thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the
LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways
higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9) “There
is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov.
14:12). “How great are Thy works, O
Lord! Thy thoughts are very deep. A
senseless man has no knowledge; nor does a stupid man understand this” (Ps.
92:5-6).
There
is a story in 2 Samuel where we find that David desires greatly to build a
house for the Lord and at first the prophet said that this would be good for
him to do it, but then he came back and told him that the Lord did not want him
to build it, but wanted his son Solomon to build the house for the Lord. David
was told that he had spilled too much blood and therefore God did not want him
to build His house. It was right after this
that the Lord told him that He would build a house for him, a spiritual house
so to speak in which his throne would continue to have Kings come from his loins,
and then the Messiah would also come from his descendents. The Davidic covenant was formed by the Lord
and it did come about just as God said it would happen. David exclaimed, “Thou art great, O Lord God
for there is none like Thee, and there is no God beside Thee…Thou art God, and
Thy words are truth” (2 Samuel 7:22, 28).
Now as we look at this story we can see
that David had no problem with doing things God’s way, for they were far
better.
John
MacArthur writes “When Peter rebuked Jesus for declaring that He must be
crucified in Jerusalem by the Jewish leader there, he either forgot or ignored
that great truth. Peter had just
proclaimed Jesus as being ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Matt.
16:16); yet when Jesus made a statement that did not fit Peter’s idea about the
Messiah, the apostle held to his way above the Lord’s and found himself
contradicting the Son of God he had just confessed.”
Let
us again look at the words that Peter said: “God forbid it, Lord!” This is a true example of trying to do things
man’s way and not God’s way.
We
will talk more about this subject in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my
life today: Doing things all the
time in God’s way is sometime difficult to do, but as I have stated many times
before that I believe that Ephesians 2:10 speaks of God in eternity past giving
works for each of His believers to do, and when I do those works in the power
of the Holy Spirit then I believe that I will be rewarded for doing them at the
judgment seat of Christ. If I don’t do
them, then I will not have gifts to lay at the feet of Jesus.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to be open to doing the works that
God has planned for me to do for the cause of Christ, and doing them in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
9/17/2022 9:16 AM
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