SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/22/2022 10:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Believers Relations to Angels”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:10b
Message of the verse: “for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven.”
We can see that in Matthew 18:10 that our Lord is
speaking of believers and their angels in a collective sense as these angels,
whether a distinct group or a whole body of holy angels, are responsible for
the care of God’s little ones, those who believe in His Son as seen in verse
6. It is in part because of these angels
who live in the presence of the Father who is in heaven that believers are
warned not to despise one another. I
mentioned in our last SD about the possibility of each believer having one
angel to watch over them, and also stated that in John MacArthur’s commentary
and also the sermon he preached on this section that he did not believe that
each individual believer had a certain angel who watched over them. I am leaning to this, that each believer does
not have a certain angel to watch over them, but I also believe that if this
were true that the Lord certainly created enough angels to do that.
MacArthur writes: “The
fact that Almighty God is so concerned about the care of His beloved children
that He has hosts of angels in His presence ready to be dispatched to their aid
demonstrates clearly how valuable believers are and how unthinkable wicked it
is to look with disdain on someone whom God so highly prizes.”
Now we have one more thing to talk about and it has to do
with verse eleven. When one looks at
verse eleven in the NASB we see that there are brackets around 11 “For the
Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” In my online
NASB it is in italics and in either way it shows that this verse is probably
not to be here as it is not found in the best early manuscripts of this
gospel. MacArthur adds “The almost
identical phrase, however, is in Luke 19:10, where ‘to seek and’ is added
before to save. Because there is no
question about the authenticity of the Luke text, there is no question that
Matthew 18:11 teaches a genuinely scriptural truth. The phrase was probably picked up from Luke
by a well-meaning copyist and added to Matthew.
But because it is not a part of Matthew’s ordinal gospel, it will not be
discussed here.”
Lord willing and we don’t get swept away by the in-coming winter storm that has been talked about for the last ten days, we will move onto looking at verses 12-13, skipping verse 11, as we look at the topic “Believer’ Relation to Christ.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful
that I am learning that when the book of Matthew in the sections we have been
looking at is showing us that children are not just little children, although
they could be, but all the children of God through Jesus Christ’s sacrificial
sacrifice on the cross for them.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the Lord to keep us safe and warm
through this up-coming storm that is suppose to hit in the early hours of
tomorrow, which happens to be my daughter Kim’s birthday.
12/22/2022 11:21 AM
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