AUGUST 14 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#24 “Is the power and authority of baptism from heaven or from men?”” (Matthew 21:25)

 

AUGUST 14  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  

JQ#24

  “Is the power and authority of baptism 

from heaven or from men?””  

(Matthew 21:25)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, I pray for Your Holy Spirit to direct my steps today and keep 

me focused on finishing well — Lord I know that even though they

 are “good intentions” on my part, far to often do I let my “good intentions”

 draw my focus off the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and then before

 I know it, I am blindsided with my own “good intentions” and find I 

have drifted from the “main thing” towards “self” again, it is slow, it is

 a subtle drift, but it is a drift “away” and Lord I pray that Your Spirit will

 warn me when I start drifting to “self” for the results are never good,

 regardless of my intentions — I have surrendered to Your Way 

and pray to remain surrendered to Your Will, completely!!!   

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus clearly never Taught a Lesson without first 

“living the answer” 

——— with “Supreme” confidence can a “follower” step in 

THE FOOTPRINTS OF CHRIST and KNOW THEY LEAD 

THE “WAY” TO THE FATHER! 

When we read that Jesus cleansed the temple of God in Jerusalem,

 we can see the Messiah executing the will of the Father in the 

Father’s temple, and when Jesus is attacked after healing and forgiving sins

 in the midst of the temple that He had just cleaned, we can see 

the Son of God declaring

 “Have you not read [My Father’s words]?” 

(Matthew 21:16)

 so then we must know that there is a deep spiritual message when 

“[Jesus] left them and went out of [Jerusalem] to Bethany, 

and He lodged there.” 

(Matthew 21:17) 

Jesus had made a Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, He then 

cleansed the temple by driving out the moneychangers and after 

reclaiming the temple for its rightful purpose and establishing the

 temple as a “house of prayer”, the temple filled with multitudes

 needing healing of various types 

“and [Jesus] healed them.” 

(Matthew 21:14)

 Then when 

Jesus, the very Son of God, 

was attacked for doing the Father’s work, in the Father’s house,

 in the Father’s city, Jesus rebuked them and sent them away and

 one might expect that once Jesus got things in order there in 

Jerusalem that He would have “lodged” there but no, Jesus went 

out the Eastern Gate, walked through the Garden of Gethsemane

 and across the Kidron Valley for about 30 minutes and then up the 

ridge at Olivet into the small village of Bethany on the southeastern 

slope of the Mount of Olives — and Jesus found lodging there 

instead of “downtown Jerusalem”!  Jesus was always letting 

His life show the “priorities” that He consistently used to guide 

His actions and in this particular case, the fact that Jesus preferred 

staying in a humble abode in Bethany instead of some lavish room 

in Jerusalem spoke volumes ——— for there were some circumstances

 existing in Bethany that caused Jesus to take the walk “out of the city”,

 across the Kidron Valley into Bethany and “lodge” there instead! 

There is much to be considered here if one is a follower of Jesus or if

 one is a defender of the “doctrines of men”. There was something 

or someone in Bethany that made the Savior, the Messiah, 

the King of the Jews, the Son of David want to “lodge there”.

 If we want Jesus to come “lodge” with us it would be good to know

 what it was in Bethany that was so appealing to our Lord. On the 

other hand, if you don’t want to open your house and home to Jesus 

then you might hang a sign out that says “There’s NO ROOM in the Inn”

 or flash a big “NO VACANCY” sign and point out to Jesus that

 His room in Jerusalem was already “rented out”!  

Before we head back to Jerusalem, don’t you think it would be a good idea

 to find out what drew Jesus to “lodge in Bethany”?!?!?

AUGUST 13 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#24 “Is the power and authority of baptism from heaven or from men?”” (Matthew 21:25)

 

AUGUST 13  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   

JQ#24

  “Is the power and authority of baptism 

from heaven or from men?””  

(Matthew 21:25)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer    

JESUS, my Lord and my God, all my Praise and Glory is raised to You!

 You Lord are beyond any description and Your Greatness is more

 than can be compared! O Lord, words alone cannot express Your Glory, 

Lord it takes the Pure Holy Spirit to fully Praise You.  We are not yet 

what You have purposed us to become and I certainly have much work 

to be done in my life to achieve Your Purpose for my poor wretched 

soul which is still growing in Your Spirit each day. I suspect that it 

will be a wretched soul until my wretched body decays into the

 wretched earth, but Lord Jesus, grant it Lord that I will die each 

day to my wretched self that Your Love, Peace, Joy, and Righteousness

 will increase in my life that is now wholly surrendered unto You.   

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus addressed the “indignant” accusations of the chief priests

 and scribes (that were in the temple of God in Jerusalem watching

 Jesus do “wonderful things” which could only be accomplished 

by the Messiah) by rebuking them with the very scripture they

 themselves were supposed to be teaching. Instead of teaching 

“God’s Commands” to the multitudes the scribes and chief priests 

were endeavoring to make political and economic gain for themselves

 in God’s temple in God’s Holy City, Jerusalem! (Matthew 21:12-16) 

After Jesus rebuked the “indignant” chief priests and scribes that 

had seen Jesus executing the duties of the “Office of the Messiah” 

right before their very eyes in the temple of God in Jerusalem, Jesus

 “left them and went out of the city to Bethany, 

and He lodged there.” 

(Matthew 21:17) 

The chief priests and scribes in the temple in Jerusalem had been 

executing the duties of their offices with rulings that had been handed

 down to them from the Sanhedrin Supreme Court located just 

outside the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem in Bethphage on the 

Mount of Olives for hundreds of years. The curse that slowly but 

surely overcomes all men seeking “power and authority” overtakes 

the power seeker when he tries to assume the “power and authority of God” 

and even the strongest of men succumb to the “power curse”!

 Each man that “succumbs” then contributes to the decay of the 

“command of God” as they inject personal opinion and personal desire

 into what they would like to see as a “command” and thereby the 

“command of God” is defiled bit by bit by the defiled selfish desires

 of the doctrines of men——— and eventually what surfaces as “legal”

 as declared by the Sanhedrin becomes the “doctrines of men” taught to

 the multitudes by the chief priests and scribes but bears only a slight

 resemblance to a “command of God”. The transition from the

 “command of God” to the “doctrine of men” is a slow and subtle “cancer”

 infecting all “power usurpers” and is most often shrouded in “entitlements”

 and after successive (or more accurately in today’s terms, “progressive”)

 rulings of each “Supreme Court” are handed down, and there eventually

 comes that time when in order to make room for more “personal” 

interpretation in the interest of “self-promotion” and “vote-buying 

entitlements”, the “command of God” must in some cases be eliminated

 altogether! If you think this has not happened in America, look at 

the United States Supreme Court decisions and plot them on a 

time line against the moral decay milestones our society has experienced

 from the time that we were the greatest country on earth to our present

 3rd world status!  Notice particularly on the moral decay timeline

 the correlation between moral decay and the removal of God from

 our government and prayer from our schools! What one must 

conclude (when the Truth  of God slaps you in the face) is that Jesus

 knew something and that indeed each society and every generation

 must address His Question: 

“Is the power and authority of baptism

 from heaven 

[God the Father] 

or from men?” 

(Matthew 21:32  JQ#24) 

because you cannot answer that Question without realizing that 

each society is ruled by a “government” and the important question in 

any society is not “Who the government rules?” but the really critical 

question is “Who rules the government?” 

For Example: At one time when our society 

was a majority Christian nation and the people took 

active part in the American government,

 there was a Godly meaning to 

“a government of the people, by the people and for the people” 

but now that America is described as 

“whatever we once were, 

we’re no longer just a Christian nation…” 

(former President Barak Obama Email to CBN News 2007)

 and Christian prayer has been removed from our public schools, 

the sacrifice of the unborn 

{abortion} 

for “commercial endeavors” 

{death for profit}

 is endorsed by the United States Supreme Court and is the

 “law of the land”! 

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{Note: This original August 13th devotional was written

 in 2016 BEFORE the Presidential election and in 2022 Roe v. Wade 

was overturned by the Supreme Court as a result of efforts by new judges

 appointed by the winner of the 2016 election but there is still much work to 

be done in bringing America back to our Christian roots!} 

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Least our society forgets,  “We the People” must stand 

in Holy Judgement before the eyes of the True and 

Only Supreme Judge, regardless of what “earthly laws” 

are passed by an “earthly Supreme Court”!!!  It is truly important 

that we as a society, we as a family, we as the Church, and 

we as individuals give an honest answer to this Question 

and admit to ourselves what we truly believe about

 “baptism”, “power and authority”, “heaven”, 

and how they all relate to

 “Jesus”, “Faith”, 

the “doctrines of men” 

and the “commands of God”!