SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/16/2024 10:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-7 “The Reckoning We Face”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
25:19-27
Message of the verses: “19 "Now after
a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
20 "The one who had received the
five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you
entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’ 21 “His
master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with
a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of
your master.’ 22 "Also the one who had received the two talents
came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained
two more talents.’ 23 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful
slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many
things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 “And the one also who had
received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man,
reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
25 ‘And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you
have what is yours.’ 26 “But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked,
lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I
scattered no seed. 27 ‘Then you ought to have put my money in the bank,
and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.”
I want to continue writing about this last slave,
the slave that did not do his master’s will, the slave that as we look deeper
into this parable was not a true believer.
MacArthur writes “The truth of the matter was that the slave had no real
concern for his master one way or the other, and his excuse seems to have been
more spur of the moment than planned.
He did not expect the master’s return and did not expect to be held
accountable, and when he was caught by surprise he simply threw out an
outrageous charge that made no sense.”
If
this is true, and I believe that it is true then I can learn that living for
the Lord takes planning, planning to stay in His Word, to do the things that
the Bible says to help me to grow in the Lord, and as stated this takes
planning.
Now
as we look again at the first two servants we find that the distinguishing mark
of them was that they used their opportunity to serve the Lord before His
return, which they eagerly awaited, and thereby proved the genuineness of their
salvation. These two were willing to
invest everything they had in service of their Master. However the third servant, on the other hand,
put aside what God had given to him and then went about his own selfish
business. He just did not thing that it
was important to do what his master had asked him to do, as he called himself a
servant of God, however he demonstrated conclusively that he was not.
As
we see in the last part of this parable that the master was angry with the
third slave, not simply because he lost a profit but because the slave wasted
his opportunity, and we can see in the parable that Jesus’ point was that
having little to work with is no excuse for not using it at all. The truth is that even a person with limited
exposure to Scripture and who possesses few talents and few opportunities for
service is fully obligated to use those blessings in order to serve the Lord.
MacArthur
writes “In T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in
the Cathedral, the chorus chants, ‘Yet we have gone on living, living and
partly living.’ Those words are
reminiscent of the three slaves in this parable. Two of them were truly alive, whereas the
other had only the appearance of life.
Two of them built their houses on a foundation of rack, the other built
his on sand. Two of them were wheat, the
other was a tare.
“The
profit earned by the first two servants represents the accomplishment and
satisfaction of a life that belongs to the Lord and is faithfully dedicated to
His service. The failure of the third
servant to use that with which he had been entrusted by his master represents
the emptiness, uselessness, and worthlessness of a life in which profession of
faith in Christ is proved false and meaningless by the careless waste of
privilege and opportunity.” And with
this quote we finish looking and learning from this parable, remembering that
we are talking about the tribulation period as we look at Matthew chapters 24
and 25.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I can learn things from all three of these
slaves, and from the first two I can learn to continue to work for the Lord and
in my working for the Lord use the talents that He has given me to serve Him as
I live the Christian life on this earth.
From the last slave I can learn not to be selfish, to care greatly about
what the Lord has entrusted me to serve Him.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I have been serving the Lord now for over
fifty years and I remember what our former senior’s Pastor said, and that is to
finish strong, and that is what I want to do.
I can only do that by continue to learn from the Lord as I study His
Word.
3/16/2024 10:33 AM
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