SPIRITUAL DIARY
FOR 11/7/2012 10:29:00 AM
My Worship Time Focus: A Question
of Priority
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark
12:28-34
Message of
the verses: “28 One of the scribes came and heard them
arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What
commandment is the foremost of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The foremost
is, ’HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; 30 AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE
LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR
MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ 31 "The second is this, ’YOU SHALL LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than
these." 32 The scribe said to Him, "Right, Teacher; You have truly
stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM; 33 AND TO LOVE HIM
WITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THE UNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH,
AND TO LOVE ONE’S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings
and sacrifices." 34 When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He
said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that,
no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.”
We will begin this SD with a little bit of review
from what we have learned from the 12th chapter of Mark. We began this chapter by looking at a parable
that Jesus spoke against the religious leaders of Israel which made them want
to kill Him all the more. This would
have been on Wednesday of what we call “Passion Week.”
The Sanhedrin then began to send the
Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Scribes to test Jesus, in what was actually a
fulfillment of Psalm 2:2 “The kings of the earth take their stand And the
rulers take counsel together Against the LORD and against His Anointed,
saying;” We will see that the disciples
of Jesus spoke of this fulfillment in Acts chapter four, “23 When they had been
released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief
priests and the elders had said to them. 24 And when they heard this, they
lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, "O Lord, it is You
who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM, 25 who
by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said,
’WHY DID THE GENTILES RAGE, AND THE PEOPLES DEVISE FUTILE THINGS? 26 ’THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR
STAND, AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS
CHRIST.’ 27 "For truly in this city there were gathered together
against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius
Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your
purpose predestined to occur.”
In the section of Mark that we will
look at today we will see a Scribe who will be the next one to test our Lord,
and as we read this account we can see that there seems to be a difference in
the way that he talks to Jesus than in the way the Pharisees and the Sadducees
spoke to Him for Jesus tells him that he was not far from the kingdom of God at
the end of His conversation with this Scribe.
Not far from the kingdom is not in
the kingdom, and we can see from the first commandments of the Ten Commandments
that there are two types of people in this world: “2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself
an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or
in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on
the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but
showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” What is a Christian? One who loves the Lord! Who makes up those who are not
believers? Those who hate the Lord! Since we are going to be talking about loving
the Lord in this section of Mark it is good to know the two classes of people
that are here on the earth.
This Scribe who comes to Jesus is also a
Pharisee and the probable reason of the question that he has for Jesus is to
trick Him, but the question that he asks has been asked by the Pharisees to
each other. Dr. Wiersbe points out that
“The scribes had determined that the Jews were obligated to obey 613 precepts
in the Law, 365 negative precepts and 248 positive. One of their favorite exercises was
discussing which of these divine commandments was the greatest.” In the answer that Jesus gave to the Scribe
we see that there are, according to Jesus, more important commandments. Love is the greatest of these as we can see
from different places in the Scriptures beginning with the quotation that Jesus
gives from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “4 "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the
LORD is one! 5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your might.”
Verse six goes on to say, “6 “These words, which I am commanding you
today, shall be on your heart.” The word
that is translated “Hear” is the Hebrew word “Shema” and the Shema is still
recited by devoted Jews today in the morning and the evening. As we look at verse six we see that this is
an issue of the heart, but the Jews were making it an outside issue, something
they did in order to make their way to heaven by this work of reciting it.
The entire 13th chapter
of 1 Cor. is about love, what it is and what it is not, and it ends with these
words, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these
is love.” Jesus stated this to His
disciples on the night when He would be betrayed and then crucified: “John 13:34
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even
as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John tells us how we as believers are able to
love: “1Jo 4:19 We love, because He
first loved us.” We are not able to love
in a biblical way if we were not loved by God first. Paul states, “But God demonstrates His own
love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
What we can determine about love is
that God is love, God loves us and the only way we will be able to love God and
others is because He first loved us. He
demonstrated this love to us in the person of Jesus Christ who loved us so much
that He took our place on the cross.
Because of His great love for us we are able to love Him and also love
others which is the next commandment that Jesus gives to the Scribe, and it
comes from Leviticus 19:18, “’You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge
against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.” There are some who don’t think that they love
themselves enough, but I don’t believe that this is the case at all. When you get up in the morning take note of
all the things that you do for yourself, things like washing your face,
brushing your teeth, combing you hair, feeding yourself, exercising, making
sure you have the proper clothes on.
These are all things we do, and countless others, because we desire to
take care of ourselves. The question is
do we show this kind of devotion and love to others? This is what Jesus is speaking of.
Jesus speaks of the two greatest
commandments in all the Scripture, loving God and our neighbors. Remember that Jesus gave a parable in Luke
about who our neighbor’s are so we know who they are. I believe that the Ten Commandments flow out
of these two greatest commandments, and out of the Ten Commandments flows the
many other commandments that are seen in Exodus through Deuteronomy,
Deuteronomy means the renewing of the Law so many of the laws seen there are
repeated from the earlier chapters. I
have also looked at this from the perspective of the cross, that is these two
commandments. The vertical portion of
the cross shows love flowing down from God and our love flowing up to Him,
while the horizontal part of the cross shows our love for others, our
neighbors.
As far as the portion of our text
that talks about how this scribe was “not far from the kingdom of God,” Dr.
Wiersbe states, “It means he or she is facing truth honestly and is not
interested in defending a ‘party line’ or even personal prejudices. It means the person is testing his or her
faith by what the Word of God says and not by what some religious group
demands. People close to the kingdom
have the courage to stand up for what is true even if they lose some friends
and make some new enemies.” This scribe
knew that the kingdom of God was an issue of the heart, which was more
important to him than the burnt offerings and sacrifice that were being offered
in great numbers during this Passover week.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Perhaps
one of the things that the real church in the United States is lacking is our
genuine love for the Lord and also loving ourselves more than we should, and
our neighbors less than we are doing.
God has surely gotten my attention about these things and it was
reinforced by this section of Scripture and the message that I listened from
John MacArthur this morning.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Loving the
Lord with all of my being and loving my neighbor as myself.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 130:1-3
1 Out of the debts I cried to You, O
LORD. 2 Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications. 3 If You, Lord, shall
mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
11/7/2012 12:00:49 PM
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