FEBRUARY 20 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#05 “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:8)

 

FEBRUARY 20  THE JESUS QUESTIONS

  JQ#05  

“Or what man is there among you who,

 if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” 

(Matthew 7:8)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Jesus, Jesus, the only Name by which man can enter the

 narrow gate to heaven. Jesus is the Name that all generations call out to

 for salvation. Jesus, we bow humbly before You because You so richly

 deserve all praise and honor. There is no Name other than Jesus that man

 can call upon for Hope, there is no other Name but Jesus that brings so 

much Hope to our hurting hearts. 

Lord, I realize that there is no good in me but only through Your Name

 can I give anything good to my generation. Jesus, Holy Spirit of God, 

I yield to Your Will, I will “wait for the Lord” to see how You would have

 me serve You and Your kingdom. Forgive me of all sins, even the hidden

 sins, that I will be made Holy.    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS starts this passage in Matthew 7:7-14 out pretty simple with

 “ASK-SEEK-KNOCK” but Jesus has a way of reaching deep into us with 

these simple questions and revealing some of the deeper 

Mysteries of God. 

Let’s examine the 2 simple Questions Jesus asks in this section, keeping 

in mind that Jesus came to Teach us about the Father:

 (L1) “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread,

 will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9) 

(L2) “Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?” (Matthew 7:10) 

When you answer these two identical Questions from the viewpoint

 of the Truth that Jesus came to reveal the Father to us, we can immediately

 see that if we “ask” of “our Father in heaven” that He will give us only “good”

 things. Jesus is saying that if we will stop and look at the things the Father

 has already given us that we should have supreme confidence that He

 has only “good” intentions for our future. Isaiah quotes God Himself:

 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 

Nor are your ways My ways,

 says the LORD. 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 

so are My ways higher than your ways, 

and My thoughts than your thoughts.” 

(Isaiah 55:8-9) 

There is another great Truth of God that is contained in these simple 

Questions in Matthew 7:9-10 that is often overlooked ——— simply,

 Jesus, being the Son of God, 

is the most reliable source of 

Truth about the Father 

that we could possibly have!  

We could read the entire New Testament with the single thought that

 Jesus is the Son of God 

and we would see all the characteristics of the Father whom we seek

 to know being revealed by the Son! The fact that God chose to

 have a Son should thrill our hearts and souls because if God had chosen

 not to have a Son then how could we think of God as the “Father”? 

And if God really chose to be “childless” then we would not have any

 confidence that we could possibly be considered for “adoption”! 

To think of God as merely a Supremely Powerful Being gives no “Hope” 

that an inferior being such as man could ever aspire to inherit the kingdom —

 however, our HOPE comes from the Biblical Fact that 

The Supreme Being in all His Superiority has reached down

 as a “Loving Father” and says to us, “You are not inferior, 

I created You in My image and I have chosen YOU 

to be part of MY Family! 

I love you so much that I sent My Beloved Son to walk among you 

 TO SHOW YOU THE WAY and to bring you HOME —

 if you will only believe in THE SON, THEN THE FATHER 

will make you joint heirs OF THE FATHER’S KINGDOM” 

These Questions in Matthew 7:9-10 were answered when God sent His Son

 and made Him the Bread of Life for us and “our Father in heaven” has

 provided for us with great abundance, if we will but only

 look to the Son to see the Father.

 We will see further glimpses of our

 LOVING GOD and HEAVENLY FATHER  

standing with open arms 

in the narrow gate as we finish Matthew 7:10-14!

FEBRUARY 19 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#05 “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:8)

 

FEBRUARY 19  THE JESUS QUESTIONS

   JQ#05  

“Or what man is there among you who,

 if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” 

(Matthew 7:8)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Thank You Lord for the new day You give us each morning and the Hope

 that comes with knowing that You are in control of our lives for an eternity

 of sunrises! Lord, I thank You for the bright sunlight that greets me each

 day and for the warmth and Light of Your Holy Word. 

Lord Jesus, You came to earth to seek and to save that which is lost 

and Your Words were designed that in our lostness we might find the Way

 so Lord as I open Your Word this morning I look to 

Your Light to guide my Way.    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS starts this Lesson on knowing where to find success in life by going to

 the “Source of Life” who is God Himself. 

There is a huge blessing found in this opening statement by Jesus that we so

 often just read over without stopping to understand the implications of what

 Jesus is saying!? Let us read it again but this time think of the

 

“Divine Implications” 

coming from the Son of God  

“Ask, and it will be given to you; 

seek, and you will find; 

knock, and it will be opened to you, 

for everyone who asks receives,

 and he who seeks finds, 

and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” 

(Matthew 7:7-8) 

The most obvious and most important question to ask is

 “Who can make this kind of promise and keep it for ‘everyone’?” 

Jesus is telling us that God is in control of everything in the universe and 

God is “our heavenly Father” 

so if we go to Him and “ask” for His Advice, “seek” His Truth, 

and “knock” on the door of His Understanding, that

 

God Promises to Give us His Good Advice 

based on His Eternal Truth 

and the Door to His Infinite Knowledge 

will be opened wide 

for us to enter into His kingdom! 

The “Law of Choice and Consequence” was introduced yesterday in order

 to take a stab at why Jesus would end His JQ#04 Lesson on “judging others”

 with a warning to “… not give what is holy to the dogs…” (Matthew 7:6) ?

 — the Holy Spirit has been Teaching me the 

“Law of Choice and Consequence” 

for several years now in my morning studies 

and it brings to “light” the 

problem of our society abandoning the 

Holy Moral Standard given to us by the Eternal Holy God. 

The “Law of Choice and Consequence” was established by the

 One Holy Creator God before the foundations of the earth and supersedes any

 “laws” that may be “legislated” by any society — in other words, according to 

God’s Law of Choice and Consequence

 you are free to “Choose” to take someone else’s life

 but that action has a predetermined “Consequence” 

which will apply to every individual that faces that “Choice” — 

if you “choose” to let the person “live”, 

the “Consequence” of that “Choice”

 is to be given God’s Mercy and Grace 

but if you “choose” to take that person’s “life” 

the “Consequence” of that “Choice” 

is to suffer God’s Wrath 

for the “Consequence” of “taking someone’s life is called murder” —

God has declared that “murder” deserves “punishment” — 

and the issue here is simply that the

 “Law of Choice and Consequence” is “Eternal” 

and cannot be changed by any society

 that decides that it is “legal” to “take the life of someone else”! 

God has declared “taking the life of someone else is murder” and it will

 remain “murder” in the eyes of the “Moral Law Giver” for eternity! 

Only by making a “law” that is applied equally to every human being  

is that “law” fair for every individual of every generation, regardless of race,

 nationality, religion, or social status!!! 

God has already “judged” that “murder” is “Wrong” 

and God Himself has declared the penalty —

 it is our responsibility as “stewards” of

 “God’s Moral Law”

 to make sure that the “legislation” of our society aligns with

 “God’s Moral Law” 

and that 

“God’s Moral Law” 

is applied equally to every living soul! 

That is why Jesus told to us to “judge not” — 

because when we use the definition of “Right and Wrong”

 that has been established by

 immoral legislation which contradicts 

“God’s Moral Law” then we are

 usurping the Power of God — 

it is pointless to “judge” because God has

 established already what the penalties and rewards

 for our actions will be!  It is our responsibility to learn and to know what God

 declares is “Right and Wrong”!!! 

When I answer truthfully this Jesus Question

 in both verses Matthew 7:9 & 7:10 there is a deeper burning Lesson that Jesus

 always Teaches with His simple but powerful Truths about the Father 

which the Son reveals to us through His Question/Lessons. 

The Bible cannot be read without a great curiosity about God being generated

 in our souls and I personally believe that God inspired the Bible to be written

 in such a way that we would want to solve the “Mystery of God”. 

Once the curiosity has been sufficiently stirred by the Old Testament

 and the Prophecies of the “End Times”, the New Testament and the 

Teachings of Jesus flood us with special visions of God. 

The Son of the Living God Himself became flesh 

and dwelt among us to reveal the Father God to us. 

(see John 1:14)

I personally started my “Journey to Truth” not knowing much about God 

but I did have a great curiosity to “really know the Creator”. 

My personal journey has been “documented” by personal journals that I

 have kept since 2001 and God has revealed Himself through those journals

 to me through my day-to-day living. The Holy Spirit blessed me to have

 that initial curiosity to want to know God and I was further blessed with the desire to

 “take notes” as I made my “Journey to Truth” by seeking God. 

This curiosity was tempered with advice from the first Pastor that got me

 to thinking about actually “knowing” God. Pastor Brian Walls told me

 to study “World Views” and that advice fixed firmly in me the thought that the

 

Word of God is the “inerrant Word of God” 

and the foundation of our Christian World View. 

This passage in Matthew 7:7-14 is a great place to start and even though

 I didn’t know much scripture when I started my early journals, I did know 

“…seek and you will find…knock and it will be opened…” 

—so it was this section that started me down my journey 

and through my study of the WORD  Jesus Teaches us these simple

 Truths of God with His Lessons,

 all of which clearly shows us who the Father is! 

This passage Teaches us that in order to find the answer to “who is God”

 and “what is Truth” that we only need to “ask”, “seek”, and “knock”

 and when the door opens we will see

 God standing there with open arms saying 

“Welcome Home!!!”. 

The “Truth” is that if we are to get to a destination we cannot just think 

about it being there, we actually need to perform a physical action towards

 achieving our destination and God is gracious enough to bless our actions 

with positive dependable results and moves us forward one step at a time. 

God can be found — God Himself has promised to reveal Himself

 to us but we must be actively involved in 

“asking, seeking, and knocking” about Him —

 

{Word of Caution} — the action should be done with the desire to know God,

 and He will reveal Himself! Jesus reveals some wonderful characteristics of God 

the Father by passages like Matthew 7:9-14 and our study of these Lessons

 is a great “first step” for us to take on our “Journey to Truth”. It is these

 characteristics of God that teach us the “faith” we should have in 

God’s Holy Laws and the confidence that if we follow His Laws

 the results of our choice to follow Him will have 

“Divine Eternal Consequences”.