SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/11/2023 10:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Precept of True Greatness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:26-27
Message of the verses: “26 "It is not
this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your
servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;”
In the last SD that I wrote on this subject and I
learned that Jesus turned the world’s greatness upside down, and this can be
seen in these two verses. I have to go
back and think about what happened to me when the Lord saved me. I have written about this on different SD’s,
but I think that it also fits in here. I
became a believer on the 26th of January in 1974, and I can say that
this was really the last thing on my mind at that time. I was visiting a friend of mine in Florida by
myself, as I had gotten married in August of 1973. This was my second marriage, as the first one
ended in a way that was very difficult and hard on me. Here I was visiting a friend of mine in the
sunny south away from the very cold Cleveland, Ohio. My friend was a manager of a night club near
Orlando, Florida. When I got there he
told me about a series of tapes that he had, which were on the end times. I began to listen to them, one each day. It was at that time when the Holy Spirit
began a work of salvation in my heart, something that I know now was not
something that I could do on my own. It
is called an effectual call from the Spirit of God, which is His part in the
salvation of men. God chose me in
eternity past, Jesus came to earth and died in my place and the Holy Spirit
gives the effectual call, and once that comes to a person they will accept it
and thus realize that they are a sinner, and in need of salvation, something
they cannot do on their own, and then confess that they are a sinner and invite
the Lord Jesus Christ into their life to save them, which is what will happen. Now why am I writing about my salvation
experience in this SD, and what does it have to do with verses 26 and 27 of
Matthew 20? Well in the human sense of
things it does not really make sense, as it really when I first became saved it
did not all make sense to me.
These
two verses, in a human sense do not really make sense. Humaningly a person thinks that they must do
something on their own in order to make something out of themselves, (to become
great). That is not the right way of
looking at things from a Biblical sense.
Let’s look at two verses from Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. “Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others;
even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority” (1
Thess. 2:6). “It was for this He called
you through our gospel, that
you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:14). John MacArthur writes “The way to that divine
and eternal glory, which comes from God, is the way of renouncing the worldly
and temporal glory that comes from men.
The way to God’s glory is the way of the servant. Man’s focus must be on rendering spiritual
service with consummate excellence and leaving the success of that service to
the Lord.”
I
hope that in once again giving my testimony of my salvation and then giving
this quotation from MacArthur’s commentary shows that it is all about the
Lord. I am not saying that we do not
work after we are saved, as I have mentioned many times Ephesians 2:10 “For we
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
The work comes after we are saved as we depend on the Holy Spirit to
show us what work that we are to do for the Lord. Sometimes, I suppose many times the Bible
shows us things that are the direct opposite of human things. We bring glory to God by doing what He has
called us to do, not what we do humaningly on our own. Once again I go back to
what I wrote earlier in this SD and what I wrote in my last SD “Jesus turned
the world’s greatness upside down.” If a
believer has the desire to bring glory to the Lord then He must do it His way.
Well
I have to say that this SD may seem to be a bit unusual, but I hope that the
Lord will allow whoever reads this to make sense of what I am trying to
say.
I
will close with a quotation from MacArthur’s commentary and then, Lord willing
will try and finish this subject in the next SD. “Jesus was speaking of being a true servant,
not a sham. He did not have in mind the ‘public
servant’ who uses his office for personal gain and power. Godly greatness comes from genuine
humility. Only God knows a person’s
heart, and Paul assures us that the Lord ‘will both bring to light the things
hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each
man’s praise will come to him from God’ (1 Cor. 4:5).’”
5/11/2023 10:50 AM
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