JUNE 11 JQ#15-5: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 11    JQ#15-5: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, it is overwhelming to think that each day You are right there waiting for my prayers! There is no time during the day that You are so busy that we must wait to get a moment alone with You, and never have I called on Your Name that You didn’t stop and give me Your full attention. Lord Jesus, help me to understand that You are God Almighty, All Powerful, and can do anything and everything You desire, yet with all Your Power You still take the time to spend with me personally! Lord, may I never take for granted this extreme privilege of praying to the Creator and KNOWING THAT YOU HEAR ME! Lord Jesus, forgive me of my shortcomings and cleanse me eternally of my iniquities that I may be One with the Holy Trinity!        AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#15-5: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”  (Matthew 14:31) The events surrounding this particular event each are some great insights into the Character of God as we have seen many miracles by the Power of God directed towards “healing” and each thing Jesus has done reveals the Plan of Salvation that has been working even before the sun and moon were made and hung in place. This event is one of those events that Jesus uses to teach us about ourselves. If we will only recognize that Jesus is God and only through exercising the Power of God can He accomplish the Miracles of God and that only through us letting Jesus lead us that we can hope to be all that God has planned for us. God only wants good things for us and He desires that we have a “hope and a future” but our “hope” and our “future” must be centered around God and the kingdom of heaven and we, like Jesus, should be living our lives centered in the Will of the Father and doing “kingdom work”. This event happens just after Jesus was (1) rejected by His “own”, (2) learned of the beheading of His “forerunner” John the Baptist, and (3) Jesus, while seeking solitude, had shown “compassion” to the multitudes by the miracle feeding of “…about five thousand men, besides women and children…” with “…only five loves and two fish…”. We read, “Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.” (Matthew 14:22) It is important that we notice that the miracle feeding of the “five thousand” was a “team effort” on the part of Jesus, His disciples, and the Father in heaven as we note three verses where Jesus is “delegating” kingdom work to the disciples: (1) “But Jesus said to [His disciples], ‘[The multitudes] do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’” (Matthew 14:16) then (2) “[Jesus] said (to His disciples after they had found the five loaves and two fishes), ‘Bring them here to Me’” (Matthew 14:18) and (3) then after Jesus commanded the multitudes to “sit down on the grass” that Jesus “took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.” (Matthew 14:19) It is to be noted that the efforts of the disciples in this miracle resulted in Matthew writing, “So [the multitudes] all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.” (Matthew 14:20) Once we note that Jesus is involving the disciples in ministering to the multitudes we can better understand why “immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him…” while at the same time Jesus sent the multitudes away. By His actions, Jesus is setting the precedent of “setting His disciples aside” for the kingdom work of ministering to the “multitudes”. Let’s keep in mind that Jesus is ALWAYS teaching and this boat trip will not be any different. The last time the disciples made a trip by boat Jesus had been asleep in the back of the boat and when a great storm came upon the disciples they thought they were going to perish so they awoke Jesus and Jesus asked JQ#7 “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26) and now we read that “…the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary…” so here several miracles later and after having participated personally in kingdom work and a miracle feeding of five thousand that the disciples find themselves once again in a boat in the middle of a storm. Jesus is continually moving us forward but He also stops and has us take personal inventory or our “spiritual” progress as a lesson in “building our faith”. Do you ever find yourself thinking you have made progress on your journey but just that quickly you find yourself in another storm? The “storm” is the perfect time for you to stop and ask yourself, “Have I built my faith on the Solid Rock of the Kingdom of Heaven or am I going to sink in the sifting sands of the world?”

JUNE 10 JQ#15-4: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 10    JQ#15-4: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus Precious Jesus —“Thank You, You took my sins away, and I want to Praise You for all that You’ve done, so this is the prayer that I pray — please help me Lord to give of myself and to share with my fellow man, for You have said that there’s no greater love than to give your life for a friend, for all the souls lost, You died on a cross, You gave and You gave some more, so that sinners like me might truly be free, Your death opens life’s door!” (From a song given to me while in the “SPIRIT” in the late 1980s that I still sing today.)         AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#15-4: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”  (Matthew 14:31)  When I first read these words many years ago when I had just embarked on my journey to God, I imagined Jesus shaking His head at me and I heard a tone in His voice that caused me to feel shame but now years later as I read those same words and look back on how I felt about Jesus in general at the beginning of my journey, I realize I did not “know” Him. All I could imagine was what I had seen from the world and from worldly men and I knew I was guilty because indeed my faith was “small” at best and was close to nonexistent so when I read Matthew 14:31 I can actually still feel the shame and hear a “rebuke” for that was what my life was like, I was “guilty” and all I had heard from the world was “rebuke”! Now as I have been “walking” with Jesus for several years and have been learning to “know” Jesus and “understanding” that Jesus “knows” me but Loves me anyway, when I read Matthew 14:31 now I don’t feel guilt and I don’t hear a “rebuke”. What I hear at this point in my journey is a soft encouraging Voice full of compassion for my weakness and what I feel is a Loving Savior gently putting His hand under my chin and lifting my head up so that I can look into His smiling face and He says sweetly to me, “Hold your head up, “O you of little faith…” and then He assures me, “I will never leave you nor forsake you…” (Deuteronomy 31:6) and then with calm assurance in His Voice He looks deep into my soul and says “your doubt will disappear when You trust me with all your heart.” I do not feel shame nor rebuke, I now know that I am “forgiven and loved” and that is a long way to come on any journey but it is well worth the trip! What do you feel when you read this statement Jesus made in Matthew? It is a great barometer on the state of your “spiritual” life and it is worth “understanding” just exactly what Jesus is saying to you and wanting you to feel in your soul as He speaks these words to you. The original words were spoken in a very unusual situation and volumes could be written about the story that unfolded when Jesus spoke these words to Peter. The story and the words make more sense if we look at the things that Jesus had taught and done just prior to speaking these words to Peter so let’s look at the events leading up to this question Jesus posed to Peter and we will better understand the “tone” that Jesus was using. Jesus had just been rejected as He had tried to teach in “His own country” (Matthew 13:57) and then Matthew writes about John the Baptist who had proclaimed when he saw Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29) and Matthew documents that John the Baptist had been beheaded and “When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself.” (Matthew 14:13a) We can feel Jesus wanting to be alone for He had been “rejected” by His “own” and now He has received news that John the Baptist who had proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah had been beheaded for teaching God’s Truth and we can sense Jesus is “dejected” ——— “But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities, and when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them and healed their sick.” (Matthew 14:13b-14)  What a great example Jesus lived for us so that in times when we feel “rejected and dejected” that we should learn the lesson that the best way to help ourselves is to show “compassion” to others. Right after that event we then see Jesus feeding “about five thousand men, besides women and children” and He did it with “Five loaves and two fish” (Matthew 14:15-21) So when we look at these events and how Jesus reacted to them we can be greatly encouraged that we too can face these problems that come into everyones life at some time or another, or do you think that the best way to take care of “despair” is to “pout” your cares away?

JUNE 09 JQ#15-3: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 09    JQ#15-3: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, O the sweet privilege to say the Name above all names, Jesus. There is great comfort in knowing that there is the Power of all powers in the Name of Jesus and we have been given the right to speak the Name Jesus and bring that Power to play in our lives! Jesus, I bow before You and humbly ask that You grant that my life be given to serving You and that the way that I lived my life before You will be buried with my sins and that the New Life I now live with You in me will be used totally for the Glory of God.        AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#15-3: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”  (Matthew 14:31)  Jesus never really leaves one lesson and moves on to another lesson, Jesus always uses His previous lessons to weave together our understanding of what “Life” with God really means, both now in the physical and what it means in our eternal future. Jesus uses every situation He found Himself in to “Teach” us about our Father in heaven to prepare us to enter through the narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven the Father has established that all those that Believe in God will spend eternity with Him! After Jesus taught the multitudes in parables He then went to His “own country” but was rejected because those that knew Jesus as the son of Mary could not see Jesus as the Son of God! Because of their unbelief the “Spiritual Power” of Jesus was limited as we read Matthew’s account of Jesus being rejected by those in His “own country”: “Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” (Matthew 13:58) Lest we miss the lesson contained here in these 6 verses to end the 13th chapter in Matthew let us stop and consider that these 6 verses are just as “inspired” and are all verses in scripture and let us look at the context that Jesus never used a problem to gain sympathy for Himself but was continually drawing our attention to the “Truth of God”  !These 6 verses reveal what I believe is one of the most overlooked “Truths” Jesus reveals about how the Father has chosen to be “sovereign” and demonstrate His Power over all Creation. Think for a moment about the “Free Will” gift that God has given mankind and apply it to this situation where Jesus was rejected by His “own” with the results being that Jesus “did not do many mighty works there…”. A surface reading from a worldly viewpoint would say that Jesus was mad at them and was just “pouting” and He decided that He would not do any “mighty works” because of some form of punishment but immediately we can see that kind of thinking goes against everything Jesus has been teaching and against everything Jesus has been demonstrating with His life that has been lived to help others. The Truth of God that is overlooked is that when God gave us the “gift” of “Free Will” that God demonstrated His Supreme Confidence in His Ability to handle every circumstance and therefore God said that if we want to use our “Free Will” to reject Him that He promised to “honor” that “choice”, not because we deserve to have our “choices” honored but because God Himself “Chose” to bestow His Honor on our “Choice”.  The Truth of God is that the Power of God is bestowed on our choice ——— in other words, God says if you want to use your Free Will to reject Me, because of who I AM, I will not force you to accept Me but I will remove Myself until you choose to allow Me back into your life! Jesus is demonstrating that our “Belief in God” carries the the Power of God with it and although Jesus wanted to “Give” and to “Teach” the lessons of the kingdom of heaven to the people in His “own country” that when they used their God-Given Power of Free Will to “reject Him” that He honored their “choice”! Therefore it was their “unbelief” that prevented Jesus from bestowing the blessing of “understanding” on them. God has proven that He will not take back any gift that He gives us and that we have a responsibility to use the “gifts” He bestows on us to help others but if we “choose” to trust in ourselves and reject God, that is exactly what we will get! God will respect our “choice” and we will simply have to go through life without God and that choice will extend to our eternity as well, because it is only logical that if we choose to live without God then we have also chosen to die without God! I don’t know about you but I can’t think of a sadder circumstance than to literally “choose” to have all the Power of God at your disposal but then “choose” to dispose it instead of using it? Can’t you see that when we choose to live without God that we are wielding the only Power able to prevent God from working in our life and we have brought all these negative things on ourself? Be careful how you use your Free Will, it has eternal consequences and it is totally in your control!!

JUNE 08 JQ#15-2: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 08    JQ#15-2: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, You are the One that Loves us. Jesus help us to understand that Your Love is not based on who we are or what we do but the Love of God is based solely on the character of The One True God and who HE IS and what HE DOES. God is the giver of Free Will and God Himself said that LOVE is not what others do to you, but what you do to others ——— and we are to LOVE based not on what others do to us but what we chose to do to others, we can either go the way of the world and take-take-take or we can follow God and give-give-give. Help us Lord to attain “heavenly perfection” in that we choose to be like You and Love others unconditionally.        AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#15-2: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”  (Matthew 14:31)  Jesus has been faithful in teaching us that “faith” is as important to our “spiritual life” as “air” is to our “physical life. Jesus has been living the perfect example in front of his disciples and they have heard His Teachings and have seen His Miracles and the only conclusion that everyone reaches is that “all these things” that Jesus has been teaching and accomplishing by His Miracles must be from God! Jesus has been asking specific questions that focus our attention like a laser beam on the areas in our faith that needs to be improved upon and as we saw in JQ#14, Jesus wants to make sure that we “understand all these things” and the only reason we can use to explain why Jesus would “Teach” in the Power of God, perform Miracles in the Power of God, and then make sure that we Understand is that Jesus wants us to have “spiritual success”, therefore Jesus never stops teaching and He uses questions and then answers them plainly, He uses parables and then explains them clearly, and then He “Lives” His Life Perfectly so that everyone can see that “Faith in God” is to be used 24/7/365 in the way we live our lives. Jesus had just taught the multitudes in parables but now Jesus “had finished these parables” and “He departed from there” (Matthew 13:53) and we read that “When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they we astonished…” (Matthew 13:54) but we get a glimpse of why Jesus starts  JQ#15 with the statement, “O you of little faith…” for even though the people were simply “astonished” by His Teaching they could not get over their “spiritual blindness” and were proving what Jesus had previously taught that the “unbelievers” would have “eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear” and the disciples could now see that without “understanding” that we are blind and deaf to “Spiritual Truth of God”. Jesus also had taught about “fear and faith” once before when the disciples were out on the sea in a boat when a great storm had arisen and He was sleeping in the back of the boat and when His disciples woke Him up, Jesus had asked “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26) After Jesus had gotten their attention with the storm and the fear question, Jesus calmed the wind and the waves and probably went back to sleep. We find Jesus still teaching His disciples that if we follow Jesus we will always be learning because He is always “Teaching” and He makes sure we “understand” so that may mean that we have to be taught several times the same lesson to truly “understand” and in this case Jesus is teaching an advanced course on “Faith” and this time He will point out that our “little faith” will not only cause us to “fear” but Jesus is now going to teach that “little faith” is the root of our “doubt” and the logical conclusion of “doubt” is “fear” therefore Jesus is going to give His disciples several extra lessons on building our faith and also Jesus will expose the root cause of a faith that is weak. This first example happens in His “own country” and the disciples see a previous lesson coming to life as the people in His “own country” doubt Jesus is really God because they knew the names of His earthly (physical) Mother, brothers, and sisters so they must have missed Jesus proclaiming that “whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:30) The scriptures tell us that all those that were stuck on the “physical” realm had missed the “Spiritual Truth” that Jesus was the Son of God and that “they we offended at Him” (Matthew 13:57) The results of their unbelief is that they actually prevented Jesus from using the Power of God among them as we read, “Now He did not do many mighty works there (in His own country) because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58) Jesus is illustrating why it is important that we “spiritually understand” because our “unbelief” is the root cause of our doubt and fear and Jesus is continuing to teach us with every occasion that to building our “Faith” on the “Solid Rock” is our best defense against the storms of life and will open the door to His Blessings in our life! Have you ever stopped and asked yourself, what blessings have I missed because of my own “unbelief” ?

JUNE 07 JQ#15-1: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 07    JQ#15-1: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, thank You Lord for the Grace that You extend to us at those times when we are  going through our worldly doubts and entertain the fears the secular world sells to us on a daily basis. Lord Jesus, praise You that when we reject you for our petty worldly reasons that You will love us through the valley and lead us to the Light of Your Perfect Love, so I pray that instead of cowering in the darkness that we will seek to find the warmth of the “Son” on our soul and know that even when we don’t care, GOD DOES!      AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#15-1: “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?”  (Matthew 14:31)  WOW! I am amazed at how Jesus takes us through such serious lessons and asks us questions that all have “Eternal Consequences” and then after asking what we in our limited intellect think is the hardest question to ask, Jesus turns right around and asks another question that hits us right between our “spiritual” eyes and penetrates to the deepest recesses of our hearts! Then just when we think it is safe to go back into the “spiritual” waters, Jesus sounds the alarm at yet another danger. But being the good “Lifeguard” that He is, He gives us the chance to swim on our own yet assures us that He is there to keep us from “going under”. JQ#15 is one of those questions as Jesus has just taught us 13 very serious lessons and then the 14th lesson was to make sure we “understood” what He was “Teaching” and then He hits us with JQ#15 “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31) What an indictment on our efforts to follow Jesus and to become His disciple to experience His “Teachings” on such a deep personal level and then He turns around and hands us our midterm grade just when we thought we had arrived at some pinnacle of understanding! Such is the case for Peter and the disciples as Peter stepped “out of the boat” on faith but then let his worldly fears overcome his faith and quickly sank beneath the waves of worldly concerns. This is a tremendous lesson for us to learn on our journey to knowing the True and Living God as we test our faith to its limits and find that we are still mortal and as such are “finite” and limited but each time we test God we find that He is GOD and as such He is “infinite” in His Grace and Mercy and is limited by nothing! Yet each time God saves us He encourages us to use that experience to move closer to Him but He reminds us that we should always strive to get closer to God with the main goal to become “One with God” and never, never try to stand alone away from Him. The best way to look at the deep Truth of God in JQ#15 is to look at the context in which Jesus made the statement to Peter, “O you of little faith…”. Jesus had taught his disciples the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and had ended His lessons with JQ#14 “Have you understood these things?” (Matthew 13:51) and I am sure we would have answered the same way the disciples probably answered — “Yes Jesus, now we understand…” but do we really? Jesus started to show us that we really don’t get it yet as we read starting in Matthew 13:53 “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables (JQ#14), that He departed from there.” (Matthew 13:53) This type of action on the part of Jesus so far has meant that He is moving to the next lesson and so far each lesson has been an extension of our “understanding” up to and including His last lesson. We find that Jesus is ALWAYS TEACHING for His every breath was a lesson for those that watched how Jesus lived His life day in and day out! So when we read that “He departed from [the lessons of JQ#14]…” that we can now assume that Jesus is moving on to teach us the next lesson on our journey to know God. The context of JQ#15 is from Matthew 13:53 and runs through Matthew 14:36 and we should read this passage of scripture and look expectantly at everything Jesus does and ask ourselves, “What is Jesus going to teach us next?” By now if you have been learning all the previous lessons you are asking, “Will Jesus 

JUNE 06 JQ#14-7: “Have you understood all these things?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 06    JQ#14-7: “Have you understood all these things?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, my prayer today is very simple, forgive me of all my shortcomings, cleanse me of all unrighteousness, and create in me a clean heart O God!!      AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#14-7: “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus lets us know that it is important to Him that we “understand” His Teachings because once again Jesus teaches His lesson and to make sure that we “know” exactly what He wants us to “learn” Jesus sits down and explains His parables point by point so that our “understanding” is complete. There is a deeper lesson being taught by “how” Jesus is “Teaching” than the extremely important “what” He is “Teaching” with His parables and that deeper lesson is that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is demonstrating that when something is important enough to “Teach” then it is important enough to extend every effort to make sure the lesson is “learned”. Jesus again and again through this passage  introduces these deep “Spiritual Truths of God” then stops and explains in detail the meaning of the parables because each parable is a “revelation” of God Himself and outlines the “detailed” Plan of God for mankind. Jesus had just taught the “multitudes”  four very important parables (1) the sower and the soils, (2) The tares and the wheat, (3) the mustard seed, and (4) the leaven and now Jesus takes His disciples aside privately and explains to them the meaning and then adds 4 more parables. That there can be no mistake in what Jesus is trying to teach His disciples, He uses very specific and plain terminology in each of the parables and because they are the same topic in each parable we can “understand” that Jesus is teaching His disciples the mystery of the “kingdom of heaven” for Jesus specifically states these Truths of God in each parable: (Parable 1) The sower and the soil ———“Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart…” (Matthew 13:18-19) (Parable 2) The tares among the wheat ——— “He who sows the seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels, therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in fire, so it will be at the end of the age.” (Matthew 13:37-40) (Parable 3) The mustard seed ——— “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…when it is grown…becomes a tree…and birds nest in its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32) (Parable 4) The leaven ——— “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven…” (Matthew 13:33)  and then 4 new parables (Parable 5) The hidden treasure ——— “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found…and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44) (Parable 6) The pearl of great price ——— “Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45) (Parable 7) The dragnet ——— “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels come forth, separate the wicked from the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. (Matthew 13:47-50) and lastly (Parable 8) The householder ——— “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” (Matthew 13:52) It cannot be mistaken after these very plain and specific “Teachings of Jesus” that His Lessons are intended for His disciples to know that Jesus is the Son of Man, sent by God to teach about the  great treasures of Kingdom of Heaven and the impending judgement of those that reject God!  Jesus used the terms “enemy”, “wicked one”, “wicked”, and “devil” so that we will know that there is serious opposition that we will have to face in the world. Jesus also made it clear that how we live will eventually be judged by God and He will send His angels from heaven to “separate” the “good” according to God’s Standard from the “bad” and that everyone will be judged “at the end of the age”. The “Good” will be taken up into heaven and the “Bad” will be “burned in the fire”! There is no confusion as to the “eternal consequences” of punishment associated with those that choose to live  a “wicked life” and Jesus makes it equally clear the “eternal consequences of those that follow God and live a “righteous” life. After giving all these specifics of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus then point blank asks JQ#14 “ Have you understood all these things?” There’s nothing left for us to do at this point except to give Jesus the honest answer He deserves for going the extra mile to make it clear what His Lessons are trying to teach us … so, have you understood all these things?

JUNE 05 JQ#14-6: “Have you understood all these things?” The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JUNE 05    JQ#14-6: “Have you understood all these things?”

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, may my lips continually Praise You for You are worthy of continual Praise. Lord Jesus grant it that my heart will look at Your Glory and see that my life is nothing without Your Grace but is limitless with Your Grace. Lord, as I start each day with my  prayers to You, let others come first in my life as they did in Yours, keep my heart growing deep roots that Your Word will produce much fruit for with Christ there is plenty for all as Your Word is enough for all men. Jesus, we must be in the world but teach us to remain separated to You and that our “understanding” will be our guiding light through the valley of darkness for You have said “I AM the GOOD SHEPHERD” and we TRUST YOU to lead us to “still waters” and “green pastures”.       AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JQ#14-6: “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus keeps emphasizing the importance of “understanding” as the key to the kingdom of heaven and warns us repeatedly that the “enemy” seeks to devour both the “seed” and any “fruit” the Word of God produces: “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who has received seed by the wayside.” (Matthew 13:19) If we stop and ponder all the lessons contained in this one verse we will get at least a glimmer of “understanding” of the “Truth of God (ToG). First (ToG), (1) Jesus promised that the “word of the kingdom” will be spoken to us. God will do His part by “teaching” but we must do our part by “listening” to Him. Second (ToG), (2) Ask yourself “Why would God bother to teach us about the kingdom?” and the only answer is that God would not teach us about the kingdom if He did not intend for us to share the kingdom with Him. Third (ToG), (3) Teaching and listening has a common eternal goal — “understanding” —  we must “understand” for when we “understand” God’s Word we will “know” God. Fourth (ToG) (4) Once we “know God” we will be able to protect ourselves from the “enemy” of the Word, and the “enemy of the Word” desires to destroy the “seed” and the “fruit” that the sown seed will bear. Fifth (ToG) (5) The world and all its evil has trampled the path to the kingdom and packed the earth under their feet to where the seed cannot take root if we remain on the wide path to destruction. Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” (Matthew 7:13) We can see that Jesus has a good reason for stopping at this point in His Teaching us the “Way” to the “narrow gate” and making sure that we not only “hear” with our “ears” but that His Word will take root deep in our “soul” as we “understand” His Word with our “heart”. Jesus has taught the same “Truth of God” over and over and He will teach the “Truth of God” again and again because it is important to Him that we “know” the “Way Home”! Jesus continued His lesson of “understanding” as He gives us three more small gems  of great value as He teaches the parables of (1) The wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30) warning us to keep our lives free of “worldly influence”, (2) The parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32) to reinforce our value to the kingdom, and (3) The parable of leaven (Matthew 13:33) to make us aware that even a little sin in our lives will defile the “bread of life”. Jesus takes every opportunity to present His Word and the Truth of God in terms that we can relate to and here are three more examples Jesus uses to teach us that how we live our daily lives has “eternal consequences”. Do you think Jesus is being excessive when He teaches, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”?  Of course if you do not want to claim God as your “Father” then you can ask a great comeback worldly question, “What difference does it make?”