SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/23/2022 2:34 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Believer’s
Relation to Christ”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:12-13
Message of the verses: “12 “What do you
think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he
not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that
is straying? 13 "And if it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you,
he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.”
Now as I read from MacArthur’s commentary something
that I would have never thought about and that is that in this section of two
verses we see something that is implied, but not stated in this passage, a second
reason believers are not to despise each other in their relation to Jesus
Christ, and that is who I don’t believe I have ever thought about from these
two verses. Let us look again back at
verse five: “"And whoever receives
one such child in My name receives Me.” So every true believer—no matter how you, immature,
unfaithful, unattractive, or deprived—is one with Jesus Christ, purchased with
His own precious blood. Therefore, to
look down on any Christian and consider him to be worthless and useless is to
despise Christ Himself, and this is something that seems to me has been the
theme of the verses we have been looking at for a while now. Do something to a believer and you are doing
it to Christ and it is especially to have a believer do something to another
believer that is sinful. When you look
at another believer as being worthless and useless is to despise Christ Himself
and we know that is wrong. “The one who
listens to you listens to Me,” is what Jesus told the seventy when He
commissioned them, “and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects
Me rejects the One who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
We
don’t have to look to far in the NT to find out what the Scribes and Pharisees thought
about uneducated people who were of the lower class. They thought they were better than these
people and that is why they thought that they were better than Jesus Christ and
His true apostles. I have to believe
that this is how many of the leaders in our country also feel about us “normal”
people, (only the democrats do this.)
What
we see in this parable is that gracious, divine concern that Jesus is illustrating
here in this parable of the lost sheep. What
do you think? Is how this parable starts and it was a common phrase used by
teachers to get their students to ponder carefully about what was being
taught. I suppose that this phrase is
still being used today in schools.
As
we look at those that Jesus chose to be His disciples none of them were
shepherds, but we know that Moses was for a while, and David was for a while,
and so what we see here is that even though the disciples were not shepherds
they were all familiar with shepherds and their ways. MacArthur writes “This is a hypothetical
story, Jesus told of a man who was a shepherd and who had a hundred sheep, one
of which went astray. In the rugged
terrain of Palestine there were many ravines, gullies, caves, and crevices into
which a sheep could wander or fall. ‘When
a shepherd discovers a sheep is missing,’ Jesus said, ‘does he not leave the
ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is missing?’”
I think we will stop there so we don’t get into the
middle of the story and then stop. I
want to do this all in one SD so we all can get the point.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to say that I am still a little bit
confused as to how Jesus is talking about despising a brother in this story but
perhaps I will get better informed when I continue looking at this story.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Continue to trust the Lord as
we continue to go through this winter storm.
12/23/2022 3:58 PM
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