SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/13/2023 10:00 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Intro to “The Sufferings of Christ”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:17-19
Message of the verses: “17 As Jesus was
about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by
themselves, and on the way He said to them, 18 "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem;
and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they
will condemn Him to death, 19 and will
hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and
on the third day He will be raised up.’”
I have to begin with saying that I was listening to
the sermon that goes along with this section last week, which was what is
called “Passion Week” as Good Friday, and Easter are in that week as true
believers all over the world will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, something that should be done by believers each and every
day. In this section we see the third
time that Jesus has warned His disciples that He was going to go to the cross
and die, something that they did not seem to be interested in because they were
all thinking about what their positions would be in the coming Kingdom of
God. In Matthew 16:21; 17:22-23 we sae the first two times that Jesus spoke to His disciples about His coming sufferings
and death. We can be sure that Jesus was
not teaching a parable when He talked to them about this, and He was not
speaking in figures of speech either. He
was speaking in very ordinary, unambiguous terms. Jesus was not revealing a mystery or explaining
deep theological truths, as He was simply stating what would soon become
historical facts.
John
MacArthur writes “The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the central
events of biblical revelation in both the Old and New Testaments. It is those two historical events, and
certain others surrounding them, that Jesus now again predicts to the Twelve as
being imminent.”
It
has happened throughout history that there have been some people who have
portrayed Jesus as a well-meaning, loving gentle, peaceful, but naïve visionary
who somehow got caught in a hostile world and accidentally would up being
crucified. I know, for that is partly the
way that I thought about Jesus right after I became a believer, but through the
study of God’s Word and the teaching of gifted Pastors and teachers I realized
the truth about Jesus Christ. I have been continually studying the Bible to
learn more about Him for the last 49+ years, and what a joy it is. There are others who less generously pictured
Him as a self-styled, would-be conqueror who tried to pull off a coup of sorts
and became a victim of His own ambition.
I have to say that this has never entered my mind at all.
MacArthur
continues to write in his introduction to these verses: “But such views do not reflect at all the
biblical record. The sufferings and
death of Christ were no miscalculation or accident. They were not the least surprising to Jesus. On
the contrary, He knew about them even before His murderers had thought of their
evil plans. The Messiah’s suffering and
death were planned by our holy God ages before they were plotted in the minds
of evil men. Jesus knew why He was on
earth, including every detail of His life and ministry. And because He had that divine foreknowledge,
He must have endured many sufferings a thousand times in His mind before they
transpired in His life.”
Now
as mentioned before this is the third time that Jesus has spoken to His disciples
about this and so we can be assured that the Lord wanted them to understand
what He would soon face, as well as prepare them for what would also be a time
of severe sufferings and danger for them.
For almost three years they were so attuned to the popular Jewish
concepts of the glories, conquering, reigning Messiah that anything He taught
to the contrary seemed to go by them, something that I think that they had just
pushed out of their minds, something that they thought would never happen. I have mentioned that everything that was
going to happen to Jesus Christ was prophesied in the Old Testament as all of
it was planned from eternity past. Jesus
was fulfilling what was to happen to Him while on planet earth. In the early chapters of Luke we read about
Jesus, being lost to His parents, sitting and teaching in the temple, and when
His parents found Him He said that He had to be about His Father’s
business. He was talking about the plan
that His Father had for Him to do. Near
the end of John’s gospel while Jesus was about to die on the cross He stated “It
is finished,” meaning that what He was doing, what was planned from eternity
past was done, which was making a provision for unbelieving men to have a way
of redemption through His shed blood on the cross as He took the punishment for
every sinner who had been or would be born.
He did this through His sufferings and in this section that is what we
will be talking about and as I listened to the sermon on this section I learned
much more about His sufferings that I had ever known before, and that is what I
wish to share with all who read these SD’s.
MacArthur
concludes his introduction with the following paragraph: “So for the third time it is recorded that
the Lord calls them aside and seeks to impress on them the reality of what is
about to happen to Him. First He assures
them that these events are a part of God’s revealed plan. Then He gives detailed predictions of the
particular events, and finally an idea of the proportion and power of the
sufferings He would endure.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am happy about being given the chance to go over
the sufferings of Jesus Christ. I realize that there may come a time in my life
when He may call me to suffer for the cause of Christ as this world that we are
living in is winding down very fast, and there will be continual sufferings for
the cause of Christ as we make our way toward the next main prophetic event, the
rapture of the church. 20 He who
testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus” Rev. 22:20).
My Steps of Faith for Today: I have been thinking that perhaps the
greatest sin that a person can commit is selfishness, as it seems to me that
all sin comes from being selfish. It is
my desire not to be selfish, and this can only be done through the power of the
Holy Spirit as He fills me each and every day.
4/13/2023 10:38 AM
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