SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/27/2022 12:21 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Believers’ Relation to the Father”
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Matthew 18:14
Message of the verse: “14 "Thus it
is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little
ones perish.”
Today we want to look at the third reason believers
are not to despise each other, and that is because of their relation to their Father
who is in heaven, who joins the Son and the angels in rejoicing over a believers
who is restored. I have said when we
began looking at this section that I had never heard or understood that in this
section we find out that Jesus is talking about how believers can despise other
believers.
The
highlighted word “perish” in the Greek is apollumi,
and it often carried the idea of total destruction or death, it sometimes, as
here referred to nonpermanent ruin or loss.
That is good to know. MacArthur
adds “In Romans 14:15 the word parallels lupeo,
you are no longer walking according to love.
Do not destroy (apollumi) with your food him for whom Christ died’ (cf.
1 Cor. 8:11).
Now
we move onto the word perish again seeing that this word of which Jesus here
speaks relates to spiritual progress in the Christian life. God the Father does not want a single one of
His little ones to be spiritually wounded or marred, even for a brief
time. When His children fall into sin what
happens is it destroys their usefulness to Him and to the church, and it
undercuts their happiness and their right relationship to Him and to one
another. In other words it breaks
fellowship with the Lord and with His children, (other believers).
Let
us look at 1 Peter 5:7 “casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for
you.” It is like the shepherd who
searches for the lost sheep until it is found, the Father individually cares
for each person who comes to Him through the Son and will see to it that every
one of them who becomes wayward eventually will be brought back into the
fellowship of His family and His kingdom.
MacArthur
talks about William Arnot who “makes the beautiful observation that, ‘If it did
not please [God] to get me back, my pleasure would be small.’ It should be great comfort to stumbling
believers to know that, when they repent and return, their angels, their Lord
Jesus Christ, and their Father who is in heaven will all be overjoyed.”
I
know that that is a true statement, and I know that the Lord loves me and desires
for me to continue to walk with Him each and every day of my life, however even
if I know it is true I have a hard time realizing it from time to time and I
think it is because of my humanness.
MacArthur
concludes “For one believer to wound another is to attack the will of God and
set himself up as God’s antagonist. The
Lord seeks the spiritual well-being of all His children, and we had better not
do less.
“This
section of Matthew speaks powerfully to the church today. The Body of Christ is filled with believers
who look down on their spiritual brothers and sisters treating them with
disdain, indifference, and rudeness because they consider them unworthy of
special care and ministry. It is at that
very point of the church ‘s sin that it sets itself in opposition to the holy
angels, to the Son of God, and to the Almighty Himself.”
This has been a section that has caused me
to think, and to pray that the Holy Spirit will not allow me to act in this way
towards other believers, and it can only be done by the grace of God and the
continued learning from His Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to cause me to do a better job
in loving other believers, for the cause of Christ.
12/27/2022 12:53 PM
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