SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/5/2022 8:47 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-8 “The
Principle”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
16:24
Message of the
verse: “24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come
after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
Today’s
SD will be short as we look at the final section from this 24th
verse of Matthew chapter 16, and this third requirement of discipleship is
loyal obedience. It is only after a
person denies himself and then takes up his cross, that Jesus then said that
that person is prepared to follow me.
MacArthur adds “True discipleship is submission to the lordship of
Christ that becomes a pattern of life. ‘The
one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He
walked’ (1 John 2:6). ‘Not everyone who
says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,’ (Matt. 7:21). To continue in His Word is to be His true
disciple (John 8:31).’”
There are a couple of verses found
in Romans in which Paul calls salvation the “obedience of faith” and they are
found in 1:5 and 16:26, one at the front of the letter and one at the back of
the letter. Then we see that Peter
describes God’s sovereign saving work in a life as “the sanctifying work of the
Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood’ (1 Pet.
1:2). So this makes it obvious obedience
is an integral feature in salvation and is a characteristic of a believer as is
the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and the sacrificial saving work of the
Son of God as seen in Acts 5:32, and since every believer has the Holy Spirit
given to them at the new-birth as seen in Romans 8:9, then every believer is
also characterized by obedience to God as a pattern of life.
We finish this short SD by quoting
from John 12:26 “"If anyone serves Me, he
must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves
Me, the Father will honor him.”
Just a reminder of the three
requirements of discipleship as we finally finish the things found in this
verse. The first requirement of
discipleship is self-denial, then the second requirement is to take up one’s
cross, and finally the last one, the one we looked at today is loyal obedience.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It is my
desire to deny myself, take up my cross and then to have loyal obedience to my
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that
the Lord will continue to give me the desire to be a fulfilled disciple of
Jesus Christ as I seek to obey Him in all the things that I do.
10/5/2022 9:05
AM
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