APRIL 29 THE JESUS QUESTIONS
(Day 15) Summary Review of JESUS Questions
JQ#01.01—JQ#13.07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, again we pray “Give us this day our daily bread…” with
all the confidence that the “good work” You have begun in us will
be completed and that we will proclaim like King David
“The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want!”
Lord Jesus, each time I feel circumstance start to cloud up my “Joy”,
I stop and remember that You Lord are eternal and that everything You
have done is because You chose to “love” me even though I am a sinner
and that You have a “plan” for me to have a “hope and a future” and that
this time on earth is but a “vapor” that is but here today and gone tomorrow
while Your Mercies Endure Forever!
Lord Jesus, I trust that Your Rod and Your Staff will provide me with all
my needs so that I will proclaim also
“surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus has been Teaching us with the first 13 JESUS Questions to know
what is expected of all those that choose to “Follow Jesus” in terms of
“discipleship” and to understand that life is both
“physical” and “spiritual”.
Jesus then transitions us to a deeper level of understanding as Matthew records
an interesting section of Jesus Teaching us how to view the world from
God’s Perspective highlighted by
Matthew 12:14 “Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him,
how they might destroy Him.”
This attack by the “legalist” and the way Jesus responded to it
begs the transition question:
“What do our enemies tell us about ourselves?”
There are many ways to look at each situation that life confronts us with
that on the surface may appear to be “damaging” but when we have
learned to “Trust in God” we will look at these circumstances
with “spiritual” eyes and see the “Truth of God”.
One such instance happened as I was reading the introduction to JQ#13
and how Jesus had addressed a situation with a group of Pharisees that had
come to bring accusations against Jesus for they had been plotting
“against Him, how that they might destroy Him.”
It was at this point that the Holy Spirit directed me to make a note that after
writing the “Summary Review” for The Jesus Questions 1-13 that I was to
come back to this scripture and write a separate article on
what we can learn about ourselves by asking ourselves
who our own enemies are and what they accuse us of!
This seems like a strange question until it is studied in the context of what kind
of “witness” that was given about Jesus by His “enemies”.
The thought was placed in my spirit to consider that Jesus could have built
a very impressive resume just from the statements that His enemies had
made trying to find fault in Him and I thought to myself
“What kind of enemies do I have and what kind of witness
would they have about my Christian character?”
For example we read in Matthew 12:24
“Now when the Pharisees heard [Jesus was casting out demons and
healing the blind and the mute, and often Jesus did these miracles
on the Jewish Sabbath] they said,
‘This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub,
the ruler of the demons.’”
The reason that the Pharisees were out to get Him was because Jesus had
healed a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath in response
to being asked if it was “lawful” to heal on the Sabbath.
Jesus did not answer with words to be disputed
by the “law makers” in a legal debate
— Jesus answered the question by performing
a miracle on the Sabbath and then gave His questioners
an “in-your-face-Truth-of-God” answer as
He healed the man then said,
“Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath”
(Matthew 12:12)
and then Jesus turned and healed the man. The Pharisees then started building
up Jesus’ resume as they exposed themselves like they did in Matthew 12:24
by accusing Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebub.
By making the accusation the Pharisees were acknowledging and documented
the fact by way of their accusations that indeed Jesus had been casting out
demons, in fact the Pharisees were admitting that Jesus had been doing
many miracles which could not be denied and each time they accused Him,
they added to His resume because they said the things He was “doing” were
illegal by their laws —
in other words, they did not claim that Jesus was NOT doing miracles,
the Pharisees claimed that the miracles that He WAS DOING
were either against the “Law” of the Pharisees
or that the “Power” Jesus used to DO the Miracles
was some power other than God!
So the enemies of Jesus were actually being a
witness to the miracles of Jesus
because if He hadn’t done these miracles
the Pharisees could not accuse Him of anything.
If we had to let our enemies take the stand
and accuse us of “Living for Jesus”,
what kind of evidence could they present to a jury
that we might be found guilty
of being called “Christians”?
