SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/14/2020 10:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “God’s Plan”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
6:10b
Message of the
verses: “Thy will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven.”
In this SD we are going to be asking some questions that
cannot be answered this side of heaven, but I suppose that is true of other
things that we don’t understand in the Word of God. God has not told us everything, and because
He is God He does not have to tell us everything, but like the familiar verse
in Deuteronomy 29:29 says “"The secret things belong to the
LORD our God,
but the things revealed
belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” 29 “The LORD our God has secrets known to no
one. We are not
accountable for them, but
we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us,
so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions” (NLT).
John MacArthur writes in his
commentary “Many people wonder how God’s sovereignty can be related to praying
for His will to be done. If He is
sovereign, is not His will inevitably done?
This is one of the great paradoxes of Scripture, a paradox about which
Calvinists and Arminians have debated for centuries. It should be evident that
this paradox, like those of God’s being three in one and Jesus’ being wholly
God and wholly man, must be left to the infinite mind of God, because it is far
beyond the finite human mind to comprehend.
But what seems a hopeless contradiction to us is no dilemma to God. We hold both truths, seemingly paradoxical,
in perfect tension with faith in the infinite mind of God, who resolves all
things in perfect, noncontradictory truth (Deut. 29:29).” I love it when MacArthur agrees with me.
Perhaps you have never thought about
prayer in this light, but it is there and we must talk about it even though we
will never answer the question. I can’t
answer how, when God spoke that all we see in the universe happened as I don’t know
how He did that. However I see it and
the only possible explanation for it being there is because God created it, and
He did it for His own glory. He did it
so mankind would live on it, and eventually His only begotten Son would live on
it for a little over 33 years so that He can redeem mankind through His death
on the cross. I don’t understand the
fact that God is in three persons, but I believe it. I don’t understand many things, but when
God’s Word tells us that these things are true; by faith I must believe them
and leave the rest to God. In John
MacArthur’s book that we have been looking at, he begins the chapter on these
verses by talking about many prayers that were answered by God. He begins by saying “Prayer Works,” and then
by listing fifteen answers to prayer beginning with Abraham’s servant prayed,
and Rebekah appeared. He ends with
“Believers prayed, and Peter was released from jail.”
Let me end this SD by quoting from
MacArthur’s commentary: “Our
responsibility is not to solve the dilemma but to believe and act on God’s
truths, whether some of them seem to conflict or not. To compromise one of God’s truths in an
effort to defend another is the stuff or which heresy is made. We are to accept every part of every truth in
God’s Word, leaving the resolution of any seeming conflicts to Him. Attempting on a human level is to resolve all
apparent paradoxes in Scripture is an act of arrogance and an attack on the
truth and intent of God’s revelation.
“When we pray ‘Thy will be done,’ we
are praying first of all that God’s will become our own will. Second, we are praying that His will prevail
all over the ‘earth as it’ [does] ‘in heaven.’”
11/14/2020 10:43 AM
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