SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/15/2023 10:01 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Plan of His Suffering”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:17-18a)
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;”
In verse 18 we see that the first word is “Behold,”
and this was a common exclamation, a means of calling special attention to
something of importance. In the context
we find here it also carried the idea of resolution and conviction. Let’s look at Luke 9:51, a similar time in
the life of our Lord “Now as the days before he should be taken back into
Heaven were running out, he set his face firmly towards Jerusalem,
(Phillips). The difference in the Luke
passage and the Matthew passage is that in Matthew we see that He did not plan
to go their alone, but He told the Twelve, we are going up to Jerusalem;”
As mentioned in earlier SD’s the disciples had a
difficult time accepting the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah, and it was
common knowledge that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were going to try and
have Him killed. So therefore the
disciples “were amazed, and those who followed were fearful” (Mark 10:32). The disciples did not think that this would
be necessary and it would be foolhardy for Jesus even to think of going to Jerusalem. One thing is for sure that by the time of the celebration of Pentecost would come to pass that they would have a much better
understanding of why the Lord had to suffer and die.
John MacArthur writes “The Greek
word behind amazed is thambeo, which refers to great
astonishment or bewilderment, and sometimes even carried the idea of immobility
because of fright. It denoted complete
inability to correctly comprehend and react to an idea or event. The disciples had witnessed nearly three
years of Jesus’ divine, miraculous power and of hearing His authoritative teaching. They had left everything for Him and had put
themselves completely into His care. Now
everything seemed hopeless and pointless, and they could make no sense at all
of what was happening.”
I think that at this time in the
lives of the disciples that they were confused, and were giving up on the idea
of having the kingdom come immediately.
I mentioned earlier that in my opinion selfishness is the sin that can
cause a great deal of problems in the life of a believer, and that seems to me
what is going on in the lives of the disciples.
Sometimes we only think of Judas as being the selfish one of the
disciples because it was he who turned Jesus in to the Jewish leaders. The truth is that all of the disciples were
selfish because all of them desired to sit on thrones with Jesus in the Kingdom
of God. They would eventually do this
but after they too would suffer and die for the cause of Christ. We can see from the disciple’s point of view
that Jesus was doing nothing to bring about a political following and certainly
was not raising up an army. If He was
powerless against the Jewish establishment, He was totally insignificant as far
as the Roman government was concerned.
They knew that to go to Jerusalem was certain death, and “Thomas
therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also
go, that we may die with Him’” (John 11:16).
This was the most positive attitude they could muster, a heroic but
hopeless resignation to go and die with their Master.” As mentioned earlier they would do this later
on.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I think
that when I am selfish that at times I can miss out on what the Lord desires
for me to do. However in the life of the
disciples who were selfish as seen in the commentary on these verses they would
learn to do the will of the Lord, as He was very patient with them and is for me
too.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I am
learning to trust the Lord more and more.
I am reading a book on the life of Moses each night out loud as my wife
is listening to it too. In the part of
Moses’ life where the children of Israel are caught by the Egyptians as they
were on what could be described as a cul-de-sac, and they literally had no place
to go, and Moses then tells them to trust the Lord for the Egyptians you see
today you will never see again. They had
to stand and trust the Lord, as they could do nothing. I to have problems in being in cul-de-sacs
and I to desire to do something to get myself out, and I to have trouble in
just sitting down and trusting the Lord.
I had one yesterday as I met with a few of my old friends, friends that
I had before I became a born-again believer.
I thought about this lesson as I was driving to have breakfast with them and
the Lord calmed my heart. Actually it
was my desire to meet with my long-time friend Troy and his wife Charlotte, but
the Lord had other plans, plans that I pray will allow me to witness to some of
these old friends as like me, they are all getting older and perhaps more
willing to listen to the gospel.
4/15/2023 10:43
AM
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