SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/4/2020 11:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “God’s Paternity”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 6:9b
Message of the
verse: “Our Father who art in
heaven.”
When we look at this first part of the disciple’s prayer
we see God has “our Father.” Who is the
Lord talking about when He uses the word “our?”
The answer to that question is all of those who have put their faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
Let us look at Malachi 2:10a “"Do we not all have one father? Has not
one God created us?” Paul stated the
following on Mars Hill as he spoke to the Greek philosophers found in Acts
17:28 “for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets
have said, ’For we also are His children.’”
John MacArthur clarifies “But Scripture makes it unmistakably clear that
God’s fatherhood of unbelievers is only in the sense of being their
Creator. Spiritually, unbelievers have
another father. In His severest
condemnation of the Jewish leaders who opposed and rejected Him, Jesus said,
‘You are of your father the devil’ (John 8:44).
It is only to those who receive Him that Jesus gives ‘the right to
become children of God, even to those who believe in His name’ (John 1:12; cf.
Rom. 8:14; Gal 3:26; Heb. 2:11-14; 2 Pet. 1:4 etc.) Because believers belong to the Son, they can
come to God as His beloved children.”
There are perhaps more ways that the
Jewish people saw God as their father, but I want to list two of them. God was the Father of Israel, the nation that
He chose to be His special people. The
prophet Isaiah wrote in Isa. 63:16 “For You are our Father, though Abraham does
not know us And Israel does not recognize us. You, O LORD, are our Father, Our
Redeemer from of old is Your name.” The Jews also saw God in an even more
intimate and personal way as their spiritual Father and Savior found in Psalm
89:26 and 103:13. “"He will cry to
Me, ’You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’” “13 Just as a father has compassion on his
children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.”
As we have studied the history of
Israel in many Spiritual Diaries we know that over the centuries, because of
their disobedience to the Lord and also their repeated flirting with pagan gods
of the people around them that most of the Jews had lost the sense of God’s
intimate fatherhood. I take you back to
when the Jews came into the Land under their leader Joshua and how they had
conquered the Promised Land that after the major battles were over Joshua told
them that God wanted them to continue to conquer those Canaanites who lived near
them or else they would begin to worship their gods. Caleb did this which is an example of what we
as believers are to do once we are saved.
As believers we are to go up against those “Canaanites” who are
attacking our minds by getting into the Word of God and understanding what is
happening and by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God we will
defeat those things that Satan is trying to take us down with.
Back to our lesson on God being our
Father as John MacArthur writes that the Jews “saw God as Father only in a
remote, distant, faded figure who had once guided their ancestors.” It seems that perhaps it was only a story to
them and did not take it to heart.
We will look at one more quote from
MacArthur and then, Lord willing; will pick up the rest of this section in our
next SD. “Jesus reaffirmed to them what
their Scripture taught and what faith godly Jews had always believed: God is the Father…in heaven’ of those who
trust in Him. He used the title ‘Father’
in all of His prayers except the one on the cross when He cried ‘My God, My
God’ (Matt. 27:46), emphasizing the separation He experienced in bearing
mankind’s sin. Though the text uses the
Greek Pater, it is likely that Jesus’
used the Aramaic Abba (equivalent to
our ‘Daddy) carried a more intimate and personal connotation than Pater
In a number of passages the term Abba
is used even in the Greek text, and is usually simply transliterated in English
versions (see Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).”
Now as I was writing this section
from MacArthur’s commentary I began to think about a passage found later on in
Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew 23:9 “Do not
call anyone on earth your father;
for One is your Father,
He who is in heaven.” I think that many
of you know where I am going with this verse as there are religions that have
leaders who are called “fathers,” which is something that goes directly against
this verse. I think that there is more
to this and that is that because of the great significance of who our Father is
that Jesus states that this term should not be used by anyone in a spiritual
sense.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It
certainly is good at this time to be again taught about how wonderful it is to
have a Father in heaven who cares more for me than I could ever care for
myself.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to
continue in prayer for our country as I sense that troubled times are very near
for us.
11/4/2020 12:02
PM
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