Tuesday, April 8, 2025

APRIL 08 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#13 * Is your life a plus or a minus in God’s kingdom?* “How can you, being evil, speak good things? ” (Matthew 12:34)

 


APRIL 08  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  

JQ#13 * Is your life a plus or a minus in God’s kingdom?*  

“How can you, being evil, speak good things? ” (Matthew 12:34)


LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Son of the Living God, Praise, Glory, and Honor to the Son

 that Honors the Father by being Obedient to the Father’s Will, even unto 

a cruel death on a cross so that the Son of Man could be lifted before 

sinful men and draw all men unto Him. 


Were it not for that One Day on the Cross, mankind would never know

 the Hope of Eternity with God! 


O Blessed Day, O Blessed Resurrection, O Blessed Promise given 

by the very Son of God by His Blessed Sacrifice! 


Forgive us our daily sins as we seek daily to be more like Thee.   

AMEN



THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus asks us the JESUS Questions not as a query to gain knowledge for

 Himself but for our own self-awareness of where we stand on those

 “Spiritual Issues” that will impact our Eternity


Just stop and think of Eternity itself and we can quickly come to the logical 

conclusion that Eternity is populated only with the Eternal and 

throughout all the knowledge of mankind we must concede that

 

only God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is Eternal.  


Common sense tells us that 


if God is Eternal then anything that seeks to be Eternal 

must seek to be One with God 


or at the very least we must expect to share His Eternity with Him. Simply put —

 we know that we cannot create an Eternity for ourselves! Therefore, 

if we are going to spend “Eternity” with 


the Source of Eternity, God Himself — the only Self-Existing Eternal One


then it makes good sense to seek to know Him that we might gain 

His Acceptance and be allowed access to that which 


only God can provide — the “Way” that we must take to enter

 into His Eternal Kingdom through the Narrow Gate


We are familiar with the various types of entries we use every day as we go 

about our physical lives on 21st century earth dealing with locks, keys,

 combinations, and entry codes, all of which are inventions of men to

 prevent our entry or access to certain areas and the only way to gain 

entry to these restricted areas is to be given the pass codes or the key 

and then we must enter them in the right order at the right place for if we

 do not follow these requirements for our entry into these restricted areas

 then we will be met with the simple truth — “Access Denied”


Why should we think that heaven with all its Wealth and Treasures 

and Everlasting Life should be any different? 


If we want to enter the Kingdom of the All Seeing, All Knowing God 

we must enter where He has decided we should enter and we must

 be ready to enter His pass code where He says to enter it to gain 

access to His Kingdom. 


That being said we can more easily understand why Jesus would start

 instructing us how to please God once we have come to the conclusion that it is


 God and God alone that determines what is legal (see JQ#12


therefore it is 


God alone that determines True Right 

and establishes the True Moral Standard


 by which all men should live. It only makes sense that


 God rewards those that abide by His Rules for life and indeed 

that reward is “Eternal Life” in fellowship with God Himself

 in His Kingdom that He has provided for those that are 

prepared to enter His Kingdom, His “Way”! 


If God is going to provide a “Way” 

then He will provide a 

“Map [the Holy Bible]” and a “Guide [Jesus]” 

for those that seek to follow His Instructions. 


He will by no means deny us entry into the Kingdom established by God

 for His people if we follow His Instructions given to us by 

His Only Begotten Son Jesus, who by Teaching us God’s Way with His Lessons,

 Jesus is giving us the “pass code to entry into Eternity” — 


but to learn the pass code, we must honestly answer the Teaching Questions

 that Jesus has been instructed by the Father to ask those who seek to gain

 entry into God’s Kingdom and the Question being asked by God today is simply:


 “Is your life a plus or minus for My Kingdom?” 


As always, Jesus has the Answer, but are you willing to listen? 

Monday, April 7, 2025

APRIL 07 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#13 * Is your life a plus or a minus in God’s kingdom?* “How can you, being evil, speak good things? ” (Matthew 12:34)

 


APRIL 07  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  

JQ#13 * Is your life a plus or a minus in God’s kingdom?*  

“How can you, being evil, speak good things? ” (Matthew 12:34)


LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer

JESUS, Lord and Master, my Redeemer and the Lover of my soul,

Praise be to the Lamb of God, the Light of the world. 


Lord we cannot begin with our limited words to express or to give to You 

the Glory due to the Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased. 

For how can man’s mortal words express from our defiled heart words 

to compare to expressions from the Divine Holy God who has entrusted

 all that the Father has to the Beloved Son?


 No words can express Your Glory but let these three be spoken,

 JESUS IS WORTHY!

AMEN


THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus addressed the “legalism” issue with the Pharisees with 

JQ#12 “Who determines what is legal, God or man?”


Matthew then noted that the response from Jesus to the next confrontation

 Jesus had with the Pharisees, 

“Then the Pharisees [after seeing Jesus heal a man on the Sabbath] 

went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.” 

(Matthew 12:14) 

further proved 

Jesus is the Messiah! 


Even when threatened again by these “legalist” that were plotting 

to have Him killed, Jesus in the face of this evil plot responded as He always

 did when threatened by evil — by doing the will of His Father in Heaven 

openly and in public view which demonstrated to everyone that Jesus

 was indeed fulfilling the Holy Scriptures as written in the

 Isaiah 42:1-4 passage: 


“But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes

 followed Him, and He healed them all.” (Matthew 12:15) 


So when Jesus was threatened by the Pharisees and they sought to 

“destroy Him” because He had healed a man’s withered hand 

(see Matthew 12:10-13) Jesus simply withdrew from the “evil” and 

continued to do “good” to those who followed Him — Matthew makes

 a powerful statement when he wrote, 


“…and [Jesus] healed them all [that is … all who followed Jesus and 

believed He had the “Power and Spirit” of God upon Him to heal]…”

 (Matthew 12:15b) 


Jesus publicly lived this passage from Isaiah to demonstrate that His Lessons,

 Lifestyle, and His Parables were fulfillment of prophecy about the 

Messiah, God’s Chosen One


“Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom

 My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will 

declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, 

nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not 

break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth 

justice to victory; and in His name Gentiles will trust.” 

(Matthew 12:18-20 from Isaiah 42:1-4) 


This set up another confrontation with the Pharisees when Jesus then healed

 a mute and a blind man and His followers asked, 


“Could this be the Son of David?” (Matthew 12:23) 

but “…when the Pharisees heard it…” (Matthew 12:24)

they again attacked Jesus and made false accusations against Him and plotted 

yet again how they might “destroy Him”! Just as soon as Jesus Teaches

 one Question/Lesson He immediately ties all the previous Lessons together

 and introduces the next “precept” and draws the next “line” in the sands of

 our life and we begin to understand that this Infinite Knowledge being shared

 by the Master Teacher will never be exhausted! 


Therefore let us “Stay the course” and continue to “Run the race and fight 

the good fight” as we look at the Foundation of Faith built on the Rock 

and know that we are building a “house” that the storms of life will not prevail

 against if we but continue to build our Wall of Faith 

“line upon line” and  “precept upon precept” 

as Taught by the Master Teacher, Jesus Christ! 


In the last few JESUS Questions/Lessons we can see Jesus moving our

 consciousness in a controlled and specific direction towards 


knowing God the Father 


and it becomes obvious we could not have arrived at our answers and insights 

without this Divine Guidance


In JQ#10 Jesus made us stop and consider What is your Spiritual value?” 


and in JQ#11 He next asked us “What are your Spiritual expectations?” 


and to keep us headed in the right direction towards the kingdom, 

Jesus asked us in


 JQ#12 “Who decides what is legal, God or man?”


When we can finally declare to Jesus that our Spiritual value is proportional

 to our Spiritual life and declare with honesty that our Spiritual expectations

 were formerly directed towards “self” — for we had mostly seen Jesus 

as an historical figure who went about doing good and never as 


“The Living God” 


and then truly concede that


 God is the One, the Only, and the Final Authority and Judge 


— then and only then can we see that


 Jesus is the Son of God who is Teaching us to follow His Perfect Example

 and live our own lives for the good of others 


and not for self promotion.  Jesus then makes us see that we are not just 

supposed to “talk the talk”, 

but we must for the Kingdom’s sake, “walk the walk” as He asks 


JQ#13 “Is your life a plus or a minus in God’s kingdom?”  


The context for JQ#13 is all of Matthew up to JQ#13 which specifically 

starts at Matthew 12:22 and runs through Matthew 12:45. Just as in 

previous Lessons, Jesus always makes an opening statement that shifts

 our focus to a new topic and with JQ#13 Jesus again grabs our 

“Spiritual attention”  

as He addresses the Pharisee’s new accusation that Jesus

 “cast out demons…by Beelzebub” (Matthew 12:24)


 Jesus replies to this devilish accusation with this 


Universal Truth of God 


that:


 “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, 

and every city or house divided against itself will not stand…” 

(Matthew 12:25) 


The relevancy of these Question/Lessons and topics as they so directly apply

 to our world today should be proof to us that 


Jesus is the All-Knowing Living God


for I cannot read these two verses without thinking about the great division

 in our nation and in our world today and the news is full of ongoing

 desolation and wars and there is no denying that our nation has turned 

from God!?!?  There  clearly is no “unity” of “Spirit” throughout our 

secular/new age nation!  


Don’t you think that maybe Jesus has


 “Struck another nerve in our spiritual consciousness“ 

and we should prepare to learn 

 what Jesus has to Teach us about “a kingdom divided”?!?!