JULY 17 THE JESUS QUESTIONS
JQ#21 “What do you think about fish,
taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?”
(Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, each day presents new opportunities to serve
and through our service to others we will Glorify the Father
as You did when You lived the Perfect Life as an Example
for us to turn from our selfishness.
Staying stuck on ourself always leads to sin
and turning from our selfishness to following your Example
and serving others always leads to God
and His Plan of Salvation
through our helping others.
If You Jesus, being the King of all kings,
will gird Yourself with a towel and wash our feet,
why do we shirk the responsibility of serving our fellow man?
Lord grant me a servant’s heart that I will always
seek to think of others before thinking about myself, because when
I am thinking of others and serving them as You Yourself served us
while we were lost in our sin, then I trust that the Father God will see You
in me and not the sinner that I was when I was lost in my selfishness —
forgive me when I fail You and I pray daily to be filled with the Holy Spirit
and centered in Your Will and that all that I do will Honor the Father.
AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus makes a point of asking us to “think” and then He presents
the problem and the solution. The fact that Jesus asks us to “think”
for ourselves and then presents the problem is a good indication
that He is pointing us to both the “source of the problem”
and the “solution to the problem” as being within ourselves.
Jesus is telling us that we have the ability to “observe” and “reason”
and then He presents the problem of sin.
Jesus NEVER presents a problem to us without giving us a solution
and with this section of scripture Jesus is “Teaching” us that we cause
the sin problem ourselves and the solution to our personal sin problem is
to observe our actions that are resulting from our participation in that sin
and to use our God-given resources to recognize that our sin is just that —
it is OUR SIN!!!
Once we can find the “source” of our problem then we can “fix” the problem —
—— Jesus has shown us that to correct “our” sin against God
that we must take “personal responsibility” for our personal
actions/choices that result in sin and to turn from those actions/choices
and rely on our “Faith in God”.
The Lesson that Jesus is Teaching us on correcting “our” sin problem
is to come to Him when He calls us. Jesus says that we must “humble”
ourselves like a “little child” to “enter the kingdom of heaven”
and that we must choose to “receive” Jesus Himself.
Jesus told the disciples that
“Whoever receives one little child like this
in my Name receives Me.”
(Matthew 18:5)
Jesus had just called a little child to Himself and the child had obeyed
and had come to Him and Jesus had sat the child in their midst
and then started Teaching about “sin”. Jesus made it clear that
to solve “our” sin problem that we would have to come to Him
and humble ourselves as the little child had done.
Jesus then said that solving our sin problem would be rewarded
with the right to
“enter into life”
and if we failed to resolve our sin problem we would be
“cast into hell fire”.
There is a big difference between the actions of freely “entering”
or unwillingly being “cast” into our eternal destination!
Then there is the destination itself to consider:
(D1) “the kingdom of heaven” and
(D2) “everlasting fire” in “hell”.
If we think about it, we at first will think to ourselves,
“No way would I ‘enter’ willingly into ‘hell !!!’” —
which is exactly the point Jesus is making about being
“cast into”
our punishment which implies that
we will have to go to hell because our own choices
results in our own sin,
i.e. we have chosen “hell” over “heaven”
——— even if we don’t want to go ———
because a Higher Power who has reserved the Authority
to determine the “consequence of our choices” has judged our sin
and we have been found “guilty”; therefore,
because of our free-will choice to sin we will be cast into hell
by the Power of the Almighty!
Our penalty is executed resulting in us being
“cast into hell fire”
because of our “actions/choices”
regardless of our “desires or want to”!
Jesus uses the term “enter into life” which also Teaches us
that we are “dead” until we “enter into life” and so if we fail to
“enter into life” because we remain in our sin then we can say that if we
“choose our sin”
instead of humbling ourselves before Jesus when He calls,
then “we have chosen death”
for the only path to “life” is through Jesus,
all other paths keep us “lost” in our “sin”
and there is no “life” in “sin” ———
only “death” which is the absence of “life”.
The eternal residence of sin is “hell” and the “Promise of God”
is that If we turn from our sin to Jesus we will “enter” the
kingdom of God through our belief in Jesus
but if we choose not to “receive” Jesus then we will remain
dead in our sin and will be cast into hell and the everlasting fire.
There is a very good reason Jesus first tells us to
“think”
and then presents the
Truth of God
that Jesus Himself is the
“[Only] way, the [Only] truth, and the [Only] life…
No one comes to the Father except [Only] through Me.”
(John 14:6)
Can you “think” of a clearer way to present our problem and our solution
and the rewards and penalties for how God Himself will deal with “our” sin?
The Question we all face is not “IF we will sin” but the real Question
is “how will we deal with our sin that results from our poor actions/choices”
that we ALL make???
“Think”
about it,
will you choose “life”
and turn to Jesus
or will you choose “death”
and remain “lost”
in your selfish existence
apart from God???
