MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/11/2026
10:22 AM
My Worship
Time Focus: PT-4 “In a Synagogue”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Luke 6:6-11
Bible Reading & Meditation “6 On another
Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught; and a man was
there whose right hand was withered. 7 Now the
scribes and the Pharisees were watching Him [closely to
see if He healed on the Sabbath, so that they might find a
reason to accuse Him. 8 But
He knew what they were thinking, and He said to the man with the
withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” And he got up
and came forward. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I
ask you whether it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do harm, to save a
life or to destroy it?” 10 And
after looking around at them all, He said to him, “Stretch out your
hand!” And he did so; and his hand was restored. 11 But
they themselves were filled with senseless rage, and began discussing
together what they might do to Jesus.”
It is my desire to finish this section, and thus
finish the first chapter in John MacArthur’s second commentary on the Gospel of
Luke. I have written about how I will be
doing the next few chapters that MacArthur writes about the apostles of Jesus
as he dives pretty deep in writing about each of Jesus’ apostles. I also mentioned that while studying the book
of Matthew he did something similar, and so that means that I have already
written about the apostles, and it could be that I may quote from what I wrote
a few years ago when I studied Matthew.
The point is that we will be looking at these men who after Jesus was
crucified and then arose from the dead and then 40 days later went back into
heaven that it would be these men who God will use to begin the Church age and
be used by God to give out the gospel so that many people will be saved. This first happened in the second chapter of
Acts where Peter gave the first sermon in the Church age and many people were
saved from their sins, so as stated these men are very important in Christ
building His Church.
John MacArthur writes the following:
“The real issue was not the healing of the crippled man; Jesus was not
concerned primarily with their attitude toward him, or whether it was right to do good to him. The deeper question was who was honoring God:
Jesus, who wanted to show mercy to a needy individual, or the scribes and
Pharisees, who wanted only to destroy Jesus?
Sabbath observance was as they defined it—a litmus test of faithfulness
to God. Paradoxically, these religious
erroists scrupulously observed the minutiae of their Sabbath laws while at the
same time plotting to murder the Lord of the Sabbath. As David Gooding observes,
The
religious mind is a curious thing. It is
not necessarily interested in common morality; still less in relieving human
misery and affliction. It is interested in keeping rules; particularly the
rules which spring from its own cherished interpretations of Scripture or
tradition; and to these interpretations it will attribute the inflexible
authority of God himself. Let God
incarnate, contrary to its interpretations, imterpose with a miracle of divine
goodness to relieve human misery, then instead of revising its interpretations
it will plan to stop miracles happening again. (According to Luke [Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 116)
“There was a long pause while the
Lord waited for a reply. But the scribes
and Pharisees, shocked into silence, said nothing. Finally, after looking around at them all
‘with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart’ (Mark 3:5), Jesus said to the
crippled man, ‘Stretch out your hand!’
And he did so; and his hand was restored. Jesus deliberately brok their Sabbath
restrictions.
“After witnessing this astonishing
creative miracle, one would expect the next verse to read, ‘And the scribes and
Pharisees believed.’ Such was not the
case, however. Instead, they
themselves were filled with rage, and discussed together what they might do to
Jesus to destroy Him (Matt. 12:14). Anoia
(rage) literally means, ‘folly,’ or ‘foolishness.’ It denotes in this context an irrational
rage; they were out of their minds with fury at Jesus’ direct assault on their
hypocritical religion. Amazingly, the
Pharisees even enlisted the help of their bitter enemies the Herodians (Jews
loyal to the Herodians) in their search for a way to eliminate Jesus (Mark
3:6). Such an alliance was highly
unusual, since about the only thing the two parties had in common was their hatred
of Jesus.” This shows to me that just
being “religious” dose not mean that you are a true believer in Jesus
Christ. Paul said “All have sinned and
come short of the glory of God,” and this means that we are all sinners in the
eyes of God, and the only way to have that changed is to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross in order to save you soul.
“The Pharisees’ irrational hatred of
and fury toward Jesus was motivated by self-preserving fear. The Lord was striking monumental blows at the
very heart of their religious system.
Here, long before Passion Week, the religious leaders were already
plotting Jesus’ death. Their hatred
would drive their continued opposition to Christ until they finally succeeded
in having Him arrested and executed.
“These two incidents bring out the stark contrast between
Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders.
It is the contrast between the representative of God’s truth, and the
representatives of false religion; between divine truth and human tradition;
between profound knowledge and madness; between goodness and wickedness;
between compassion and cruelty; between open honesty and hidden deception;
between divine power and human impotence; between the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of Satan.
“Yet God’s grace can penetrate even
the most hardened heart. Not all of the
Pharisees permanently rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 15:5 notes that there were ‘some of the
sect of the Pharisees who had believed.’
One of those believing Pharisees, Saul of Tarsus, became the great
apostle Paul. The self-proclaimed
foremost sinner (1 Tim. 1:15), he was called by the risen Lord to preach the
gospel throughout the Roman world.”
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life Today: Looking back at the time when the Lord Jesus
Christ saved me had some similarities of when the Lord saved Saul of Tarsus as
I was not at home, traveling to visit a friend in Florida to do something that
was good. Paul was on the road to Damascus
to do something very wrong too. Neither Saul
nor myself were looking to be saved, but to do wrong. God stopped Saul and myself in our tracks and
saved us, and I have to say that was actually the best day in my life, and I am
sure that was what Paul would have said.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: To continue to write my Spiritual Diaries to
bring glory to my Savior and my Lord, Jesus Christ.
6/11/2026
11:03 AM
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