SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/17/2023 9:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Pattern For True Greatness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 20:28
Message of the verse: “28 just as the Son
of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom
for many.’”
I want to begin with a story that John MacArthur has
in his sermon and also in his commentary.
“Some years ago, Joe Delaney, a star football player for the Kansas City
Chiefs, saw three young boys out in a lake, crying out for help and struggling
to stay above the water. Although he was
himself a poor swimmer, Joe dived into the water and tried to save them. One of the boys was rescued, but Joe and the
other two boys drowned. He willingly
laid down his life in an effort to save those boys, making the ultimate
sacrifice in their behalf.
“Although
such heroes are lauded, the world understands little of that kind of selflessness,
which runs counter to man’s natural inclination to self-perseveration. But self-giving is to be the normal pattern
for Christians, just as it was the normal pattern for Christ.”
In
our Lord’s next statement, Jesus presents the first explicit New Testament
teaching about the redemptive work of the Messiah. He would vicariously suffer for the sins of
mankind as a ransom for those who trust in Him.
Jesus did not simply give His life as an example for others. He was no mere martyr for a godly cause, as
some even today still claim. He was not
merely an example of life-giving selflessness, although Jesus was indeed the
supreme example of that. Our Lord not
only lived and died for others but He died as a ransom for others. This is something that no human being could
do, and the reason is that every human, with the exception of Jesus Christ was
born with a sin nature. It was the
virgin birth of our Lord which caused Him to be born without a sin nature, for
the sin nature is passed on through the man, and the reason for that is because
Adam’s sin was unlike Eve’s sin as she was tempted by the devil. “Then to Adam He said, "Because you have
listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I
commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground
because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life” (Gen.
3:17). God said the following to Satan
in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity Between you [Satan] and the woman, And between your seed and her
seed; He shall
bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’” As our Lord died on the cross he not only
provided salvation for those who would accept His provision for salvation, but
He also dealt a death blow to Satan.
Satan still has power, but his fate has been steeled. I also want to add what God said to the woman
for her disobeying His command: “To the
woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain
you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he
will rule over you” (Gen. 3:16).
I will close out this SD with another quote from
John MacArthur’s commentary. “In that
redemptive aspect, of course, His followers cannot follow His example. Nothing that a believer can do will have any
direct spiritual benefit for himself or others.
If he could not merit his own salvation, he surely cannot merit the
salvation of someone else.
“Lutron (ransom) was the term commonly
used for the redemption price of a slave, the amount required to buy his
freedom. It is used only twice in the
New Testament (see also Mark 10:45), both times in reference to Christ’s giving
of Himself to redeem others. Here it is
followed by the preposition anti (‘instead
of’), expressing an exchange. In 1
Timothy 2:6, the word used for ‘ransom’ is antilutron,
which simply combines the two words used here. In both cases the idea is that of a price
paid for a life.”
I
want to continue this though in my next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful for the redemption that I have through Jesus Christ my Lord. Now I want to quote from a SD that I wrote on 04/12/2018. “I have always believed that what I am to do in my spiritual walk with the Lord is to read His Word each day, to study His Word each day, to pray to the Lord each day, and to be ready to tell those He brings into my life the truth of the gospel, the hope that lies within me. I also believe that God has given me works to do for the cause of Christ, and that according to Ephesians 2:10, He set these works aside for me to do in eternity past: “10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.’”
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to do the things written above,
knowing that there are times when I struggle to do them, but to trust the Lord
who loves me to give me the strength through His Spirit, and His Word to
continue doing them, and to finish strong.
5/17/2023 10:25 AM
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