SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/25/2023 6:56 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Principle”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 21:20-22
Message of the verses: “20 And seeing this,
the disciples marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither at
once?" 21 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly I say to you,
if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the
fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the
sea,’ it shall happen. 22 “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you
shall receive.’”
Yesterday while taking my walk I listened again to
the sermon from John MacArthur that goes along with the verses we have been
looking at over the past week or so, and I have to say that there is a lot more
info in the sermon than in the commentary that he wrote on these verses, and so
what I think that I am going to do is after I finish looking at things from the
commentary that I will then take a couple of days to quote from MacArthur’s
sermon where he is talking about these particular verses. I have been saying that these verses that we
are now looking at are very, very important to understand as we walk daily with
the Lord.
I
think that having faith as some people say that they have faith is very
misleading. I remember when I was
working at my job at The Cleveland Casting Plant that I, along with several
other people were up on the roof inside what could be described as a chimney
replacing some firebrick. The subject of
faith came up and one of the men who were working with me was talking about
faith in the platform we were standing on to be able to hold us up. That is not the kind of faith that Jesus is
talking about here. Faith has to have an
object, and in this case the object was faith in the Lord. Faith in faith is something that is
unbiblical and very foolish. James talks
about faith in James 4:3 where he writes “because you ask with wrong motives,
so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
John writes in 1 John 5:14 “This is the confidence which we have before
Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” MacArthur adds “Mountain-moving faith is
unselfish, undoubting, and unqualified confidence in God. It is believing in God’s truth and God’s
power while seeking to do God’s will.
The measure of such faith is the sincere and single desire that, as
Jesus said, ‘the Father may be glorified in the Son.’”
True faith is trusting in the revelation of God, and
so it is that when a believer seeks something that is consistent with God’s
Word and then trusts in God’s power to provide it, Jesus assures him that his
request will be honored, and the reason is because it honors Him and His
Father. “When God’s commands are obeyed
He will honor that obedience, and when any request is asked in faith according
to His will He will provide what is sought.
To do what God says is to do what God wants and to receive what God
promises,” writes MacArthur.
I
will stop now as I have to teach Sunday school this morning, something that I
have not done since sometime in early February.
I begin today to teach through the book of Zechariah, and I look forward
to the challenge that is ahead of me trusting the Lord to give me insight to
make the mysteries of Zechariah to be understood. 6/25/2023 7:16 AM
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