SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/10/2023 9:40 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-5 “The Participants in Kingdom
Equality”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:13-16
Message of the verses: “13 But he replied
to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for
a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last
worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what
belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first,
and the first last.’”
I think that it is time for me to talk about why the
Lord Jesus Christ spoke this parable, and the answer to that it was in response
to Peter’s inquiry in behalf of the apostles about what was in store for them,
which, in turn, was in response to Jesus’ teaching about the impossibility of
entering the kingdom by human means or effort.
Now as we have looked at this parable for some time now we can see that
the apostles represented the all-day workers who began at the earliest time,
6:00AM. They stayed on the job all day
long until 6:00PM. The apostles had
forsaken everything in order to follow Jesus and had been with Him for almost
three years at this time of Him teaching this parable. At this point none of them had suffered
anything like they would suffer in a few years, however they nonetheless had
endured considerable hardship and ridicule for the Lord’s sake. Eleven of them had genuine faith as they
truly loved the Lord.
As
the lives of the Apostles continued in these days that would soon see their
Lord go to the cross they were terribly self-centered. Just in a day or so
after this parable the mother of James and John, and we can be assured that
James and John were the ones who put her up to asking Jesus about having her
sons sit at the right and left hand of Jesus when He came into His
kingdom. “20 Then the mother of the sons
of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him
for something. 21 And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to
him, "Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand
and one at your left, in your kingdom’” (Matt. 20:20-21). Right before this in verses 17-19 Jesus had
just once more talked about His soon death on the cross: “17 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem,
he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 18 "See,
we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the
chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death 19 and deliver
him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be
raised on the third day.’” This was the
third and last time that Jesus would talk about this to His disciples. John MacArthur writes “Not many weeks later,
in the Upper Room a few hours before Jesus’ arrest, the disciples were still
arguing among themselves, ‘as to which one of them was regarded to be the
greatest; (Luke 22:24).”
I want to now look at Acts 1:6 in order to show that
even after the disciples had gotten over the shock of hearing of His crucifixion, their
minds returned again to their own selfish, worldly ambitions. “So when they had come together, they were
asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the
kingdom to Israel?’” In a short time
after this event, that is the assertion of the Lord Jesus Christ back to heaven
there would come an event that would change the lives of the apostles as well
as those who would receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, and
that even took place on the Day of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit was then
given to the apostles, and to everyone after that who would truly be
born-again. Having the third Person of
the trinity living within every true believer makes all the difference in the
world.
I
will conclude this SD with one more quote from John MacArthur’s commentary,
however there will be a few more SD’s to continue to talk about this parable
from Matthew 20. “In the parable of the
gracious landowner Jesus was dealing with the selfish, indulgent, envious, and
ambitious orientation of the disciples.
He wanted them to see, and He wants all His followers to see, that
salvation is not in any way deserved or earned.
It is the free gift of God, dispensed sovereignly and impartially to
whomever believes in His Son.
“Believing
tax collectors, prostitutes, criminals, and social outcast will have the same
heavenly residence as Paul, Augustine, Luther, and Wesley. There are no servant quarters or lower-class
neighborhoods in heaven. Everyone will
have a room in the Father’s house specially prepared for him by the Son (John
14:2). Every believer is a part of the
church, which is the bride of Christ (Rev. 21:2, 9), every believer is a child
of God and a fellow heir with Christ (Rom. 8:16-17), and every believer is
blessed ‘with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’ (Eph.
1:3). It is not that every believer
receives an equal part but that every believer receives equally the whole of God’s grace and blessing. Just
as hell is the total absence of God, heaven is the total presence of God. And every one of His children will enjoy
equally the fullness of His presence there.
Everyone who belongs to God has all of God. That great reality is summed up in the truth
of John’s marvelous declaration, ‘We shall be like Him, because we shall see
Him just as He is’ (1 John 3:2).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today:
Eye has not seen nor ear heard all of the things that God has for His
children, and that is truth. Knowing that
my home will be with the Lord living in a place in the New Jerusalem is
something that I believe, but something that I also cannot understand because I
am in this earthly tent awaiting the return of my Lord at the Rapture of the
church, something I believe will happen soon.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord, through His Holy
Spirit will give me the right words to say to my long time friends as I go and
see them one day this week, asking them to do a Bible study with me from the
gospel of John.
4/10/2023 10:21 AM
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