SEPTEMBER 29 THE JESUS QUESTIONS
JQ#29
“What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”
(Matthew 22:42)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, Thank You Lord for the Gift of the Holy Spirit and for
Your Promise to “comfort” us with both Your Rod and Your Staff.
Lord I admit that it “hurts” to be corrected by You but now I believe
it is more selfish shame from getting “caught” than True Repentance
but Lord at least I am now getting a vision of what it means to have
the “indwelling” of Your Holy Spirit to “teach us all things” and for
You to “chasten” those You Love. Lord Jesus, my prayer today
is for Forgiveness of my failure and blindness to see Your Truth
in my life and for always somehow trying to get “my way” with life
instead of accepting and embracing “Your Plan” for me — Lord,
wash me, create in me a “clean heart”, and let it never seek to satisfy
self again so that I may walk in Your Joy and in Your Peace
for I know now that it is my selfish desires welling up from my flesh
that is breaking Fellowship with the Holy Spirit
and I realize that I am robbing myself of Your Blessings!
AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus is always “Teaching” and giving us “Lessons-within-a-Lesson”
as He has just done with Teaching in His “Woe #3” that True Power
is not in the temple of God, but,
TRUE POWER IS IN THE GOD OF THE TEMPLE!!!
Jesus ended that additional Lesson revealing our blindness to
the obvious Truth of God that God IS the True Source of All Power
with this statement:
“He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him
who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by
the throne of God and Him who sits on it.”
(Matthew 23:21-22)
Jesus continues Teaching His “Seven Woes” as He pronounces “Woe #4”
(though Jesus directs the “Seven Woes” at the scribes and Pharisees
because of their “hypocrisy” His Lessons apply to everyone
for His Teachings are the TRUTH of GOD!)
Jesus says,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected
the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.
These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”
(Matthew 23:23)
Jesus is again pointing to the hypocrisy of giving “laws” to the nation
that the lawmakers themselves do not follow and Jesus makes a
specific accusation against them for burdening the nation with the
“letter” of the “law” without truly following the
“SPIRIT” of the Law
which God originally intended when He gave the Law to Moses
and later when God assigned EZRA the responsibility of using his
“God-given wisdom” in appointing “magistrates and judges” to judge
according to the “laws of God” (see Ezra 7:25)
God Himself is “SPIRIT”
so why is it that man ignores the
“Spirit of the Law”
and always “bends” the “letter of the law” to suit their selfish needs
to maintain “power and authority” through the “doctrines of men”? —
God’s Law has always been intended by God to be
administered by those representatives of His that will “judge”
using their “God-given wisdom”
as they execute the law with
“justice and mercy and faith”
which are all the
“weightier matters of the law”
and are obviously the
“Spirit of the Law”
and not “letter of the law”!
WOE #4
Jesus Teaches us with “Woe #4” that
God is THE Eternal Spirit and God gave us “The SPIRIT of the Law”
to point us to His Infinite Grace and Mercy as we as individuals
come to learn that God gave us the Law for our own good
— we are not able to keep all the “letter” of the “Law” therefore
we continually are aware how desperately we need the
“Spirit of justice and mercy and faith” to overcome our inability
to keep the “letter of the law”!!! Jesus adds an additional comment
to “Woe #4” as He did with “Woe #3” when He said they were
“Fools and blind!” for now at the end of “Woe #4” Jesus adds
this description of those guilty of defiling the
“Spirit of the Law”
when He calls them
“Blind guides, who strain out a gnat
and swallow a camel!”
(Matthew 23:24)
Therefore remember the
“weightier matters of the law [are] justice and mercy and faith”
and know that
according to God, “justice and mercy and faith”
constitute the “Spirit of the Law”
— Jesus had already earlier in His Ministry Taught
about the
“Spirit”
and the “letter” of the “Law” —
“For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away,
one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law
till all is fulfilled.”
(Matthew 5:18)
and the Book of John reminds us also:
“For the law was given through Moses,
but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
(John 1:17)
which was said of Jesus just before Jesus was identified as
“The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
(John 1:29)
Small wonder Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees “hypocrites!”
for teaching the “letter of the law” and missing the
“True Spirit of the Law” which is “mercy and faith”!?!?!?
If we listen to Jesus as God the Father has instructed us, we will both
“respect” the “letter of the law”
and “revere” the “Spirit of the Law”
— its your “Choice”
but remember Who controls the “Consequence”!!!
