MAY 19 THE JESUS QUESTIONS
JQ#16 “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God
because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, Lord and Savior, again today as I read previous prayers to start
my day, I am simply amazed at how Faithful You have been to Teach me
in ways that I could not imagine, ways that Teach me how to grow
my faith in Your Faithfulness!
Here is a prayer written in 2004 that is as timeless as is Your Glory —
“Jesus, you alone have the right to claim a kingdom over man and You alone
will be the Great LORD and Master over ALL living things. All but Thee
have sinned and all but Thee have fallen short of the Glory of God.
Lord forgive us in our weakness of the flesh ——— I pray and praise Thee
and I acknowledge as did the Apostle Paul that I do the things
I shouldn’t and then I don’t do the things I should?!?!
O Lord, I will keep turning to Thee and praying for forgiveness
and will continue to start each day looking to walk in Your Ways
as I come humbly to You in Spirit and in Truth.”
AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus will continue to Teach us in ways that we often miss in the first reading
of a particular Lesson but Jesus moves our focus always to the
Truth of God so if we but look again at His Lesson for the Truth of God
that is always at the Heart of every Jesus Lesson, we will have
our “spiritual” eyes opened and we will “see by Faith”
the Goodness and Truth of God!
The Holy Spirit has again led me to “extend” the context of this JQ#16 to
include the next several verses through Matthew 15:20 as I had missed the
“Truth of God”
when I read the text the first time through. The context from
Matthew 15:1 through Matthew 15:20 should be carefully studied to gain
“spiritual” insight for the JESUS Question JQ#16
of why do we as a society give “man-made traditions” so much authority
while we fail to give God His Rightful Authority over ALL things! The
Truth of God
is that in our daily lives that when we stop to consider our “traditions”
we miss the obvious
Truth of God
that we never give proper consideration
as to where our “traditions” originate —
from God or from man?
This is very similar to the Question Jesus asked the Pharisees when they
accused Jesus of breaking the “traditional law of the Sabbath” of the
Pharisees regarding Jesus and His disciples when they were
plucking heads of grain and eating them on the Sabbath and of
Jesus healing a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath also.
Jesus answered their question by telling them the
Truth of God
that
“Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath”
(Matthew 12:12)
and the Pharisees saw that their “traditional/man-made law”
has no argument against the
“Truth of God”.
Now once again we see the Pharisees questioning Jesus
as to another “tradition” that the Pharisees were using
against Jesus and that was the tradition of
the washing of hands before the eating of bread ———
if Jesus would stop and correct the Pharisees about
“traditions established by man”,
then we too should stop and learn the Lesson
Jesus found important enough
to stop and Teach,
especially when it concerns the “traditions”
that we tend to live by in our daily lives.
Matthew records this
Teaching of the Truth of God
“Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem
came to Jesus, saying, ‘Why do Your disciples transgress
the tradition of the elders? For they [the disciples] do not
wash their hands when they eat bread.”
(Matthew 15:1)
Jesus at this point exposes the problem
with their “traditions”
when compared to the
“Truth of God”
as Jesus turned their question around
and posed to the Pharisees regarding “their traditions”
JQ#16: “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God
because of your traditions?”
(Matthew 15:3)
By taking their accusation against Him
and using it to question their “traditions”,
Jesus had once again drawn our attention
to one of our daily weaknesses we live with
and that is that we have been taught and are being taught
on a daily basis what is packaged as “accepted traditions”
that do not glorify God!
I know that in growing up, many, many things I was taught was because
that was the way everyone in my immediate family was taught —
I now look back and see that many of my friends were doing what they were
taught by their families so I have to ask this question,
“If we all do what is taught as “family tradition” in our respective “families”
and there is a conflict in our respective “family traditions” with
The “commandments of God”, then who is right?”
I can now from my studying of the
Word of God
see why God has been spending so much energy in
Teaching us to “know” the “Truth of God”
and to evaluate our “traditions” as to their origination.
I am grateful that my family was a
Bible-believing family and our “family traditions”
were based on God’s Word
and I am convinced that today’s world
needs to evaluate if the “traditions”
they are using to live their lives come from the
True and Living God
or from the “traditions of men”?
There can be only One Truth
and that One Truth
is the Truth of God,
and if every one lived by God’s commandments
there would never be any conflict in our beliefs?
Don’t you agree that if we continue to disagree
that there will never be any hope for peace?
It is a
Truth of God
that a house (or nation) divided against itself can not stand
and that is certainly true if we consider trying
to follow everyone’s personal preferences!
Somewhere,
UNITE
under one single
TRUTH
and I prefer a tradition that teaches
“Eternal Life and Forgiveness”
— what “tradition of men” do you think would be better
than the commandments of the
“Life-Giving God offering Forgiveness of sin”
to bring world peace?
