SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/8/2023 9:04 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Request to Jesus”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
19:16
Message of the
verse: “16
And behold, one came to Him and said, "Teacher, what good thing shall I do
that I may obtain eternal life?’”
I have to say that this is the saddest of stories as
this young ruler came seeking for the right thing, which is eternal life, and
he came to the only One who could provide that for him, Jesus Christ, for Jesus
Christ who not only is the way to eternal life, but is Himself that life, and
yet we will see that this man will walk away because of his love for something
that will one day fade away, that is money.
Let us look at 1 John 5:11 & 20 at this time: “11 And the testimony is this, that God has
given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” “20 And we know that the Son of God has come,
and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are
in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” It doesn’t become any clearer
that this.
John MacArthur writes “By addressing Jesus as Teacher (didaskalos), the young man acknowledged
Him to be a respected rabbi, an authority of the Old Testament, a teacher of
divine truth. Although the two other
synoptic gospels report that the man also called Jesus “good” (Mark 10:17; Luke
18:18), there is no reason to believe he considered Him to be the promised
Messiah and Son of God. But he obviously
considered Jesus to have a stature of righteous character above the typical
rabbi. The authority of Jesus’ teaching
and the power of His miracles surely qualified Him as someone who knew the way
to eternal life. Even though he did not
acknowledge that Jesus was Messiah and God in the flesh, he had come to the
right person (cf. Acts 4:12).”
This man not only came to the right source but he also
asked the right question: “What good
thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” MacArthur adds that “Many interpreters have
criticized the man for asking about what he must do, suggesting that his
question was works oriented. Doubtlessly
he was steeped in the Pharisaic legal system that had come to dominate Judaism
and was trained to think that doing religious things was the way to gain divine
favor. But taken at face value, his
question was legitimate. There is
something one must do in order to come to God.
When the multitude near Capernaum asked Jesus, ‘What shall we do, that
we may work the works of God’ He replied, ‘This is the work of God, that you
believe in Him whom He has sent’ (John 6:28-29).”
So the question is “what is the main point of the question,
how to obtain eternal life? As stated
before this is the most important question that a person can ask. The entire purpose of evangelism is to bring
lost people to Jesus Christ in order for them to obtain eternal life. The very purpose and meaning of salvation is
to bring eternal life to those who, because of sin, face eternal death as seen
in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but
the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
MacArthur concludes this section by writing: “The issue on this occasion was the man’s
salvation, not some higher level of discipleship subsequent to salvation. Most of the work of evangelism is to bring
people to the point where they sense their need for salvation, but this young
man was already there. He was ready to
sign the card, raise his hand, walk the aisle, or whatever. He was ripe and eager—what many modern evangelists
would consider a ‘hot prospect.’
3/8/2023 9:34 AM
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