EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/21/2026
9:02 PM
My
Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Self-Denial”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Luke
9:23a
Message of the verse: “he must deny himself”
The word in the Greek for deny
himself is arneomai, and it is a strong term, used to describe Peter’s
vehement denials that he knew Jesus (Matt. 27:60, 72), reprobates who
permanently deny Christ (Luke 12:9; Titus 1:16; 1 John 2:22-23; Jude 4), and
John the Baptist’s insistence that he was not the Messiah (John 1:20). Now we
will look at all of these verses.
(Matt. 27:60, 72)
“70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I
do not know what you mean.”
“72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do
not know the man.”
(Luke 12:9; Titus 1:16; 1 John 2:22-23;
Jude 4)
“9 but the one who denies me before men will be
denied before the angels of God.”
“16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by
their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.”
“22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus
is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.
23 No one who denies the Son has the Father.
Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”
“4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who
long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the
grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ.”
(John 1:20)
“20 He confessed, and did not deny, but
confessed, “I am not the Christ.”
John
MacArthur writes “It can even be translated ‘disowned,’ as it is in reference
to Israel’s rejection of Jesus (Acts 3:13-14; cf. 7:35).”
(Acts 3:13-14; cf. 7:35)
“13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you
delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to
release him. 14 But you denied the Holy
and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,”
“35 "This Moses, whom they rejected, saying,
‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and
redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.”
“To be a
follower of Jesus Christ is to disown one’s natural, depraved, sinful
self. It is to give up all dependence on
and confidence in oneself and one’s works to save.
“No one had more impressive
religious credentials than the apostle Paul.
According to his own testimony, he was ‘circumcised the eight day, of
the nation of Israel, of the bribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the
Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness,
which is in the Law, found blameless’ (Phil. 3:5-6). On trail before Herod, Paul testified that he
had ‘lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of religion’ (Acts
26:5). Looking back on his career before
his salvation, Paul wrote, ‘I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my
contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my
ancestral traditions’ (Gal. 1:14).
“Yet when he met Christ on the road
to Damascus, all of the zealous Pharisee’s religious accomplishments became
meaningless to him:
For I know
that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is
present in me, but the doing of the good is not. (Rom. 7:18)
But
whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the
sake of Christ. More than that, I count
all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but
rubbish so that I man gain Christ. (Phil. 3:7-8)
It is a trustworthy
statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ came into the world to save
sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. (1 Tim. 1:15).
“Paul
exemplified the ‘poor in spirit’ (Matt. 5:3), who acknowledge themselves to be
destitute, impoverished, and spiritually bankrupt. Like the tax collector, they mourn over their
sin and cry out, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ (Luke 18:13)
(Matt. 5:3)
“13 But the tax collector, standing far off,
would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God,
be merciful to me, a sinner!’
10/21/2026
9:30 PM
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