SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/19/2022 9:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Entering as
a Child”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:1-4
Message of the verses: “1 At that time the
disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of
heaven?" 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and
said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like
children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles
himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
I think that it is good for us to understand what
the words “at that time” means, and it is believed that this speaks of the time
when Jesus had told Peter to go and catch the golden fish to pay for their
taxes at the end of chapter seventeen.
Not sure if Peter had returned when Jesus begins preaching this sermon,
but I have to think that Peter was there along with the disciples came to Jesus
which well could have been right in Peter’s house.
John
MacArthur writes “The two scenes are closely connected in time and in
thought. On the same day the disciples
received the lesson on being citizens of the world they were given a series of
lessons on the issues related to being children of God.”
The
Lord’s message was the answering of a question that the disciples asked found
in Mark and Luke’s gospels, along with Matthews “"Who then is greatest in
the kingdom of heaven?" This
question was an argument that happened between the disciples, (Luke 9:46; cf.
Mark 9:34). Although because of our
Lords omniscience He knew what was going on He asked them “What were you
discussing on the way?” They were so
ashamed of their attitude and conversation that “they kept silent.”
Being
embarrassed shows that they knew that what they had been doing was inconsistent
with what their Master had been teaching on humility. The problem was not they did not know about
humility, but they were not applying it to their lives at this time. The disciples were looking forward to serving
in the kingdom, but the truth is that they had the cart before the horse and
would learn much about when the kingdom would be coming, and then what their
role would be in it later on after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and Him
going back to heaven. Jesus knew all
about this but did not tell them about it at this time for He knew that they
would not be able to handle it.
Jesus
had told them three times that He was going to die, but they were not willing
to think about this, and would not realize what was going to happen to Him
until after it happened to Him, and then they would remember Him speaking this
to them about it.
11/19/2022
9:35 AM
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