Tuesday, August 2, 2022

"The Motive" (Acts 1:9-11)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/1/2017 7:23 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                             Focus:  The Motive

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Acts 1:9-11

            Message of the verses:  “9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. 11 They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven."”

            I suppose that the event that we are reading about was one that the disciples would never forget, for after being with the Lord Jesus Christ for three years and listening to this man talks to them, especially the ones that He spoke to them about returning to heaven after His work on earth was completed, that they knew in their hearts that this day would come.  I think about Elisha who knew the day that the Lord was going to take Elijah to heaven and how he would not leave him until he saw him leave to go to heaven.  I think of Enoch who walked with God and one day God took him to heaven to be with Him without dying.  Both of these men never died, yet Jesus did die, die for our sins as that is the way that God had planned from eternity past to save us, and now as we have read and studied in John 17:1-6 Jesus was going back to be with His Father and sit on the throne next to Him that He may begin His ministry of being our High Priest as He now intercedes for us and prays for us, and oh how we all need that.

            Jesus was standing on the Mount of Olives and when He returns at His second coming which is prophesied in the book of Zechariah 14:4 “In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.”   We also see in Revelation 19 that He will return to this same place and when His foot rests on the Mount of Olives.

            The disciples saw a cloud receive Him as He went back to heaven and this also reminds me of a part of His second coming, which we call the Rapture of the church.  Paul writes that the Lord will return in the clouds and call His bride, the church to Him.  “16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).” 

            There is another thing that perhaps were on the disciples mind that John MacArthur writes of and that is that perhaps they were thinking of what is written in Ezekiel 10:18-19 which says “18 Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. 19 When the cherubim departed, they lifted their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance of the east gate of the LORD’S house, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them.”  This passage in Ezekiel speaks of the glory of the Lord departing from the temple which happened sometime before that Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in August of 586 B. C. However this was different when the Lord went back to heaven for in this case they were not loosing Jesus which is what the word translated “looking indicates.”  MacArthur writes that this word “indicates a long gaze, in this case a transfixed look as if losing someone.  The question then, is a mild rebuke to the apostles.  They were not losing Jesus, as they feared.”   As mentioned the disciples had heard Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John 17:1-6 which tells of His going back to be with His Father and to intercede for them in heaven, along with us too who are all believers in Jesus Christ.

            We have written about how no one knows when Jesus will return in a previous SD and stated that we should therefore all be ready each day for His return, to live our lives in a way each and every day so that we will not be ashamed when our Lord returns finding us doing something that we should not be doing.

            John MacArthur concludes this first chapter in his commentary on the first 12 chapters of the book of Acts by writing:

“The task of finishing the work that Jesus began, the duty of evangelizing the lost world, is the daunting one.  But the Lord in His mercy from the start has provided all the spiritual resources necessary to accomplish that task.  It is up to each believer to appropriate those resources and put them to use.  ‘We must work the works of Him who sent us [Jesus Christ], as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work’ (John 9:4).”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To remember that my High Priest and also the Holy Spirit, and others are praying for me so that I can do the things that are pleasing to the Lord.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  John 9:4.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Four.”

Today’s Bible question:  “Out of what did God make the first woman?”

Answer in our next SD.

7/1/2017 8:04 AM

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