SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/7/2024 9:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Responsibility we Receive”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
15:14-15
Message of the verses: “14 "For it
is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own
slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. 15 “To one he gave five talents,
to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he
went on his journey.”
I want to begin with three levels of responsibility,
that Jesus mentions in this parable, however those are suggestive of the
extremely wide range of individual abilities among people, who vary greatly in
natural talent, intellect, and other capabilities. There is another thing that needs to be
mentioned and that is that people also vary greatly in opportunity and
privilege as some church members have heard the gospel and studied Scripture
every since they were early in their childhood, whereas others know only the
rudiments of faith and have had little opportunity to learn more. MacArthur now mentions something that I
mentioned in my last SD: “Those who are
true believers are also given spiritual gifts that vary widely from person to
person (see Rom. 12:4-8, 1 Cor. 12:4-11).
Some Christians are privileged to live and work closely with others of
like faith and are continually encouraged and corrected by fellow
believers. Other Christians, however,
are the only believers in their families or even in their community or
town. God knows intimately the
abilities, gifts, opportunities, and circumstances of every person, and He
graciously assigns responsibilities accordingly.”
In
the Sunday school class that I am teaching, and have been for almost eight
years I pass out a devotional that comes from a book that John MacArthur wrote to be used each day of the week, but I
use it each week and once a month’s worth have been looked at I move on to the
next month. The subject that we are
reading about in these devotionals is about the twelve apostles. MacArthur spends a lot of time in talking about
the apostles that are better known that the ones that are not as well
known. He goes into the different gifts
that each one has even though in some of them there is not much known
about. Like the members of the church
the apostles had different gifts, different levels of responsibility. I think that the point that I would like to
make here is that if a Christian is in tuned with the Holy Spirit of God
through studying the Word of God, by being in a church family where they can
learn from good Biblical preaching and having a desire to really want to serve
the Lord that the Spirit of God will use them in a way that He has planned to
use them. A favorite verse of mine that goes
along with this subject is 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 Lord will show you what He has planned
for you to do as Paul says that it was prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
I
will conclude this section by quoting from the last two paragraphs from
MacArthur’s commentary so that we will be better able to understand these first
two verses in this parable.
“The
issue of the parable pertains to what each slave does with the fairly assessed
responsibility he has been given. The noblest
motive in the heart of a faithful servant would better accomplish as much as
possible for the sake of his master during the master’s absence. That was also the master’s desire: not equal
return from each of his slaves but relatively equal effort according to
ability.
“It
is significant that, although the slaves with the five and the two talents did
not produce equal profits, they produced equal percentages of profit, doubling
what they had been given. In the same
way Christians with different capabilities and opportunities may produce
differing results while working with equal faithfulness and devotion. The Lord therefore assures His servants that “each
will receive his own reward according to his own labor” (1 Cor. 3:8).”
Lord
willing in our next SD we will begin looking at Matthew 25:16-18 “The Reaction
We Have.”
3/7/2024 10:15 AM
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