SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/3/2023 10:06 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “How Not To Be Great”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 20:20-25
Message of the
verses: “20
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down
and making a request of Him. 21 And He said to her, "What do you
wish?" She said to Him, "Command that in Your kingdom these two sons
of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left." 22 But Jesus
answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the
cup that I am about to drink?" They said to Him, "We are able."
23 He said to them, "My cup you shall drink; but to sit on My right and on
My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has
been prepared by My Father." 24 And hearing this, the ten became
indignant with the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said,
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their
great men exercise authority over them.”
What we will be looking at today is a short main
point and then begin to look at the first sub-point that goes along with these
verses. I suppose that we will not get
all the way through the first sub-point today and will have to finish it in our
next SD.
John MacArthur writes the following
short introduction to these verses: “It
is impossible for the principles of the world to be effective in or adaptable
to God’s kingdom. By their very nature
they are contrary to His way and destructive of His work. They not only never produce greatness but
always produce disharmony, pettiness and spiritual weakness in the Body. In this passage four of those worldly principles are clearly seen.”
Political Power Play (Matthew
20:20-21)
“20 Then the mother of the
sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request
of Him. 21 And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him,
"Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your
right and one on Your left.’”
In this sub-point we will be looking first at
worldly principle for greatness, and this might be called political power play
and this is reflected in the attempt of the mother of the sons of Zebedee. She wants to persuade Jesus to give those two
sons, James and John the highest places of honor in His kingdom. I am not sure if I have even talked about how
the mother of James and John was related to Jesus, she was actually His aunt,
the sister of Mary His mother.
I have to say that there is a
political power play that is going on in our country right at this time, and
has been going on for a lot of years.
This has to do with the President’s son and how he has become rich
because of the influence that his father has had since he has been in
government, which is a very long time.
As mentioned the mother of James and John was the aunt of Jesus and so I
believe that she actually knew that Jesus was the Messiah and therefore wanted
her sons to be involved in a high place in the Messiah’s kingdom here on
earth. That kingdom is called the
Millennial Kingdom and even though she did not realize it then this kingdom has
not happened yet.
I
have mentioned many times in earlier SD’s that the disciples at this time in
their lives have not yet received the Holy Spirit, as that would not happen
until the Church age began as seen in Acts chapter two. So as we look at their request all of this
happened before the church age began, and thus before the Holy Spirit was
given. I am not saying that people who
are true believers cannot do things like what is going on here. Another thing that has been mentioned is that
this request came right after the third time that Jesus was telling His
disciples that He would go to Jerusalem and be crucified. This certainly brings about very poor timing
on their part.
“32
They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of
them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He
took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, 33
saying, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man
will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn
Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. 34 “They will mock Him and
spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will
rise again." 35 James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, *came up to
Jesus, saying, "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of
You." 36 And He said to them, "What do you want Me to do for
you?" 37 They said to Him, "Grant that we may sit, one on Your right
and one on Your left, in Your glory’” (Mark 10:32-37). Now in Mark’s account we do not see the
mother of James and John, but James and John asking Jesus the question about
them sitting with Jesus in His Kingdom.
I am not sure if their mother was walking with them or not, but the
point I want to again make is that the question was asked right after Jesus
telling the disciples that He would soon die on a cross in Jerusalem.
John
MacArthur writes about this passage in Mark:
“From the Mark passage it is clear that the mother was speaking at the
behest of her two sons. In fact, Mark
makes no mention of her at all. The
three obviously came with a common purpose and plan they had discussed among
themselves beforehand. The mother
probably spoke first, and then James and John spoke for themselves.”
Lord
will we will finish this first sub-section in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There are times like what is seen in this
section of Scripture that I have to say that I get the wrong idea as far as
thinking of me and what I would do in a case like is found here. This, to me goes along with looking at the
kings of Judah in the Old Testament and seeing how some of these kings would
start out very well in their relationship with the Lord and then it seems like
all of a sudden that stop serving the Lord and even some of them start to
worship other gods. The point in all of
this to me is that as a believer I have to finish strong, to keep doing the
things that are pleasing to the Lord and not fail in serving the Lord like the
kings of Judah were doing and like James and John were doing asking Jesus a selfish
question right after He had said that He would soon die.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to go over Philippians 4:8 and
meditate on this very important verse to me at this time. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true,
whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy
of praise, dwell on these
things.”
5/3/2023
10:47 AM
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