JUNE 30 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)

 

JUNE 30  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, another day You have given me breath and life, 

I pray that everything I do and say will be a reflection of the Grace

 so freely bestowed by the Loving Father on a sinner such as I. 

Lord there are so few things that we can do that really 

Honor and Glorify You so I pray that I will Trust and Obey You 

today and do that which You have planned and 

YOU HAVE WILLED ALREADY FOR MY LIFE! 

I lift my family up to You now in humble prayer, 

You know the needs in the depths of our heart and soul 

and so I place them in Your Healing Hands. 

Lord Jesus, You have told us that if we believe on You 

that we will become “One” with You, 

just as You and the Father are “One”. 

Grant it Lord that we see the Heavenly Prize of Belief, 

the Daily Comfort of Faith, and the 

Joy and Peace of Your Forgiveness.           

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus is the “Way” and He certainly has a “Way” of Teaching 

that makes the Lesson stick with us and with this “fishy” Lesson 

Jesus Teaches us some valuable 

Truths of God about “Faith” 

using a “fish” and a single “piece of money”. 

The scene is set when Peter is approached by the temple tax collectors

 from the Capernaum synagogue and they in effect inform Peter 

that Jesus is delinquent on His “taxes” and they are wondering if and when 

Jesus is going to pay the temple tax? (Matthew 17:24) 

Peter told them “Yes” and then went to tell Jesus. 

When Peter entered into the house where Jesus was staying, 

and even before Peter could ask Jesus if He was going to

 “pay the temple tax”, Matthew records that 

Jesus “anticipated” 

that Peter was going to ask Him about taxes. 

(Matthew 17:25) 

This simple word “anticipated” tells us volumes about God 

and we should pull over at this point and examine all the connotations

 surrounding the meaning and reality of the fact that even before Peter

 could say a word, that 

Jesus KNEW what Peter was going to ask.

 The popular translation for the word used for “anticipated” 

in Matthew 17:25 is “prevented” and is used in the sense that 

when Peter started to speak that Jesus in effect said 

“I know what you’re going to ask Me 

so let Me ask you a Question first” 

which further identified and 

confirmed the deity of Jesus Christ because only the 

Divine Omniscient God knows everything that happens

 without having to depend on reports from outside sources. 

Only Jesus demonstrates that He is God 

and has all the Powers of God, 

and only Jesus reveals the Omniscient character of God 

to us as another Truth of God!!! 

The fact that God knows everything about us is considered 

by some to be an invasion of privacy but to those that have nothing to hide, 

it is a comfort to know that 

not only does God KNOW everything that happens to us, 

that God CARES about how those events affect our eternal soul 

and uses each circumstance to prove that He is a Loving and Caring God

 and that He only wants the best for our future.  

God uses every circumstance in our chaotic lives to point us

 to the Truth of God that He will “Teach” us 

through the Holy Spirit how to “learn” kingdom wisdom 

from everything if we will Trust God to decide 

what is “Right” and “Wrong” in our daily lives. 

Therefore when we read that Jesus

 “anticipated” 

what Peter was going to ask, 

we should understand that 

“Divine Anticipation” 

as God telling us 

“I Got This!” 

and Trust and Obey Him when He tells us how to handle the situation 

— even if the solution seems as “far-fetched” 

as “going fishing” 

in order to “pay taxes” ——— 

and add to that the fact that all Peter had to do was 

take the first fish he caught, look in the mouth of the fish 

and find in a single coin with the exact amount to pay taxes for two,

 not just one! 

This is the

 Truth of the Economy of God: 

God always provides the simple solution 

and that when we depend on His Provisions 

that we always have “enough” 

— regardless of the size or quantity needed, 

GOD ALWAYS PROVIDES “ENOUGH” !!! 

God never solves a problem without putting His Signature on it and that 

“Signature of God” is that the only possible explanation 

to the “solution” is the unexplainable “Mystery” of God. 

Who was the last person that could tell you your problem

 before 

you spoke a word and then solved your problem

 by some outrageous solution

 like getting the exact amount needed to pay your taxes 

in a single coin from the mouth of the first fish you caught 

when you went fishing instead of paying your taxes? 

I know, I know, it doesn’t make any sense at all, 

and I think that is just exactly the point, 

if we can make sense of it then we will take credit for it 

but I can just imagine Peter laughing while 

dropping the coin into the tax collectors hand 

along with several fish scales and then going home

 and having himself a big fish fry wondering — 

who’s going to make the tartar sauce?!?!?

JUNE 29 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)

 

JUNE 29  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, no other name but the Name of Jesus

 carries the weight of eternity for every soul that ever lived! 

Every soul ever created by God has uttered 

or will utter the name “Jesus” 

and Lord we know that when Your Precious Name

 is spoken from the heart in true humility 

that You will respond with Peace, Love, and Joy 

that can only come from speaking that Name

 given by the Father Himself 

that every soul that utters that Name with Respect

 and Honor will be Respected and Honored in return

 by adoption into the Family of God

 through God’s Plan of Salvation. 

O Precious Name, Jesus, Jesus, JESUS!!!

 May my life reflect the Glory and Grace and the Mercy

 that has been extended to this sinner 

because of the Power of the Name of JESUS!     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus Teaches us so many side Lessons 

while He is Teaching a specific Lesson

 that we must always stop and look at all the circumstances

 involved with each Jesus Question and we must also keep in mind that

 the “Question” is being asked by One 

that has Supreme Knowledge of all things, 

He knows the deepest desires of our hearts as well as all the 

thoughts we think inwardly, even though those thoughts are so deep

 in our selfish desires that they do not even surface in our own consciousness 

— yet He still knows every thought that we have!?!?

 This knowledge is revealed to us if we will look at the circumstance 

surrounding this specific incident and the most unexpected way that 

Jesus resolves the issue with the most unusual use for fish and faith 

that we will ever encounter. First we must look at the “characters” 

involved and they are: 

(C1) Jesus, 

(C2) Peter [Simon Bar-Jonah], 

(C3) Tax collectors from the temple at Capernaum, 

(C4) a fish, and 

(C5) a piece of money. 

Let’s look at each “character” separately 

to get the full impact of this scenario 

and the miracle produced from the most unlikely 

source of tax revenue ever recorded! 

(C1) First to consider is Jesus — 

Jesus has been casting out demons, raising people from the dead, 

feeding the multitudes, giving sight to the blind, 

healing every sickness brought to Him, walking on water, 

calming storms, and teaching about the 

“Spiritual” life being lived in our “eternal souls”, 

our “physical” bodies being temporary, the eventually of 

standing before Almighty God and the Final Judgement, 

and the reality of both Heaven and fellowship with the Father 

and also Jesus has been teaching of Hell 

and our eternal separation from God Himself, 

and the scary reality IS that our eternity 

will be determined by how responsible we are with the 

Gift of Free Will 

bestowed upon us unconditionally by the Supreme Power!!! 

So when we look at the Life lived in the flesh by Jesus so far,

 we can only come to One Conclusion: 

Jesus is the Christ and is the Only Begotten Son of the Father, 

and Jesus is both “fully man” born of flesh 

and “fully God” for He is the earthly embodiment of God’s Holy Spirit!!! 

So the first “character” is “God’s Son” on a Mission from God, 

Jesus is a Gift from God because God “so loved the world” 

that God has given “His Only Begotten Son” for a single purpose, 

that by belief in Jesus being God’s Son that all those 

that “believe” will never “perish but have eternal life” 

(John 3:16). 

(C2) The second “character” is Simon Bar-Jonah whom Jesus named “Peter” 

when Jesus called Simon the fisherman to follow Him 

and be His disciple. Peter was the first one to declare that 

Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” 

and it was Peter that got out of the boat during a great storm at sea

 and actually walked a couple of steps on the water himself

 before sinking beneath the waves and crying “Jesus save me!”.  

(C3) Our third character is a “tax collector” sent from the synagogue 

at Capernaum to collect the temple tax from Jesus

 and it was the tax collector that started the miracle 

by asking Peter if Jesus is going to “pay the temple tax?” 

— just another innocent “tax collector” doing their job of tracking down

 and collecting “taxes” from everyone they can find?? 

(C4) The fourth character is the most unusual of all when considering God, 

His followers, and tax collectors hunting down God 

and collecting taxes from Him, and that character is almost 

as slimy as the tax collector — enter character #4, the “fish”. 

(C5) The last character is not usually thought of as a “character per se” 

but everyone knows that all our personalities are affected by “money”

 and so we are going to give “a piece of money” the status of a “character”

 in this scene which denies human explanation anyway. 

Now that we have all the “characters” identified this would be a good time

 to exercise our individual intellects and without reading the scriptures further

 that we at this point stop and consider the circumstance

 and ask the cliche “W W J D ?” and just try to “imagine”

 why in this circumstance with these really odd characters 

that Jesus would first ask Peter 

JQ#21 — “What do you think, Simon?” (Matthew 17:25)

 Don’t cheat by reading ahead but just try to imagine a scenario 

using all these “characters” and put yourself in Peter’s shoes 

and use your own intellect and answer how you 

“think” 

Jesus is going to handle this tax collector?!?!? 

In other words, fill in the blank with your name 

as Jesus asks

 YOU,

 “What do you think, 

____(YOUR NAME GOES HERE)___?” 

(Matthew 17:25)