JULY 10 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)

 

JULY 10  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 I turn each morning to Your Word and look to the rising sun

 as Your Promise to never leave us nor forsake us. 

Lord Jesus, my prayer today is that I can share this “Peace-in-knowing-You”

 with others that You will place in my path today. Make me mindful

 that whatever circumstance I find myself in 

that I will have Your Peace with me always. 

If I don’t share Your Peace with those that don’t know You, then that 

becomes a lose-lose-lose situation, they lose because they don’t have You,

 they lose because without You they can’t have Your Peace, 

and I lose for I lost an opportunity to grow closer to You by sharing You

 and Your Peace with the world that is hurting so much 

because the world has turned from The WORD of GOD! 

Forgive me when I fail to share the sweet fragrance of

 Your Love and Peace in my life with others 

as You have commanded.    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus does not Teach us the same Lesson over and over just so that

 He can hear Himself talk. Jesus who is both Infinite and Divine 

cannot possibly need to beat our brow for His sake, so when 

He attacks a problem again and again we must take note and make

 every effort to learn what He is Teaching. 

First we must consider the obvious and ask ourselves

 

“Why would a Deity with Infinite Knowledge 

forfeit His Deity to become flesh 

and suffer and die at the hands of sinners?” 

 

This is a Mystery of God that can only be answered by God Himself

 but even if we never get the answer in our lifetime we should not be

 so foolish as to conclude that because God does not “explain Himself”

 in terms that our limited intellect can comprehend, that we should

 decide that God Himself has no relevance in our life!

 God has revealed Himself as He wants us to know Him 

from our earthly viewpoint so that we can come to a 

“spiritual understanding” of God 

that will open the door to our “eternal” future. 

I do not have to know how gravity works or be able to explain 

all the physics associated with gravity to know that gravity exists. 

Today’s world tells us that God does not exist and that is supposed 

to be the “Truth” because they have been given a degree in some

 scientific discipline by some university that has a very high tuition? 

Both God and gravity defies scientific explanation but we accept gravity

 because we have felt it working in our daily lives. We say that gravity 

was “discovered” by Sir Isaac Newton when an apple fell on his head 

but fail to see the Truth that gravity existed BEFORE it was “discovered”

 (first, if something does not exist, it cannot be discovered, 

and second, if gravity didn’t exist before it was “discovered” 

then what made the apple fall in the first place?) 

and secondly, even though it was “discovered” it has never been fully 

explained, but even though science cannot explain gravity, 

our lives are still impacted by gravity and we simply could not exist without it.

 We know gravity is “real” because we can see the physical results 

of gravity such as a falling apple or something so simple as a pencil

 laying quietly on a table — take away gravity and that pencil 

and the table will be floating around in the absence of gravity 

and that is a picture of our world without God holding us “spiritually” in place,

 we are just floating aimlessly around in space and we are at the mercy

 of others and we’ll go in the direction of the latest “push” from 

the powers that are telling us God doesn’t exist and is not relevant in our lives.

 God is real and can be proven very simply, 

God can be felt just as real as an apple that falls from the tree 

but we have to have ourselves in the apples path to feel it 

and to feel God we must place ourself in His Path. 

Simply look for Him and His Spirit will touch your heart. 

Just like our physical body is aware of the presence of gravity, 

the “spiritual” part of our being will know when it is in the Presence of God. 

God is an unexplained Spirit and even though it can not be comprehended

 by our limited physical observations, the Spirit of God is to our soul 

what gravity is to our body, the Spirit of God keeps us grounded 

in eternity just like gravity keeps our bodies grounded to this earth 

on which we temporarily reside.  

The Truth of God is that both gravity and God work on us on a personal 

basis without the explanation of the scientific community 

and are governed not by man’s laws but by God Himself. 

To entertain the possibility that God does not exist is to allow others

 to control the “spiritual gravity” in your life and I personally don’t want

 those that seek personal power over others to control what they can’t explain,

 and that goes for both gravity, which by the way it is imperative 

that I keep in touch with gravity on a personal basis without having to wait

 on some lawyer or politician telling me how to use my personal gravity 

and the same is true for my “spiritual gravity” which I do not want to 

have to wait on some lawyer or politician telling me how to use God

 who they can’t explain either! 

God is revealed by gravity and we must make our own “discovery” 

and admit that if we can explain God or not, 

GOD EXISTS 

——— how else do we explain the things that no scientist 

will ever be able to explain such as the universe around us 

and the miracle of life itself that we have observed which can 

only be explained by the True Existence of a Supreme Power 

———  God’s UNEXPLAINABLE Understanding and Power 

define God Himself !!! 

There is only One True Eternal Creator God 

and all else is simply His creation ——— 

God told Moses “I AM WHO I AM” 

and that is all the explanation that we need 

to understand both gravity and God ——— 

God has declared it, therefore it is, “deal with it”!!!

JULY 09 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)

 

JULY 09  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, Your Peace is freely offered yet we struggle 

to release ourselves from the chains of our past sins which 

You have already won the victory over?!?!? 

Lord Teach me as only You can that when You died on the cross 

that it was for ALL sin, EVERY sin of the past,

 EVERY sin in progress today, and EVERY single sin 

that we WILL COMMIT in our future!!! 

Lord let me hear Your words as You gave Your last 

drop of Precious Blood for the atonement of my sins —

 “It is finished!” 

— Yes !!! 

The Work of God has been accomplished, 

our sins ARE FORGIVEN !!! 

Lord do not let me go on trying to drag my sin around with me,

 I am powerless against it and it is nothing more than dead weight 

of guilt and shame that drags me down, 

Lord I lay my sin at Your feet and pray for the spiritual strength

 of weakness to not pick it up again!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus Teaches us a Lesson and we should pay close attention 

but if Jesus Teaches the same Lesson more than twice it is 

VERY important that we “think” about it long enough 

and from the right “spiritual” viewpoint to see the

 Truth of God

 that God Himself has declared important enough 

that He would send His Only Begotten Son to Teach us!

 It should impress us that God would allow His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON

 to be born of flesh and suffer innocently through all the temptations

 that the creation must suffer in this world that was once a paradise

 but through our own iniquities the world has become a cesspool of sin. 

Jesus makes it clear that the world is in deep trouble with God 

and there is an upcoming judgment because of sin 

— and this is not the first time Jesus has Taught this Lesson! 

In this section Jesus gives us several warnings, 

first Jesus tells us that we must change our direction of our convictions

 of how we live our daily lives when He states:

 

“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted 

and become as little children, 

you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

(Matthew 18:3) 

Jesus continues stressing the importance of us entering 

the kingdom of heaven through Him when He says plainly: 

“Whoever receives one little child like this

 in My name receives Me” 

and then Jesus tacks on a warning, 

“But whoever causes one of these little ones 

who believe in Me to sin, 

it would be better for him if a millstone 

were hung around his neck, 

and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” 

(Matthew 18:6) 

So there Jesus says that the “unconverted sinner” will be judged guilty!!!

 We should note that Jesus Teaches we should “convert” from 

being men seeking personal “greatness” to being humble

 like innocent children and if we “think” about that for a minute

 we will see that when we are “innocent” that we do not seek “greatness”

 and the problem with seeking “worldly” greatness is that the 

“road to worldly success” leads down the path of destruction

 that is paved with sin 

and that pathway is very broad for our sins are many. 

Jesus Teaches this same Lesson in the next verse as He warns more severely:

 “Woe to the world because of offenses! 

For offenses must come, but woe to that man

 by whom the offense comes!” 

(Matthew 18:7) 

No one can read this section of scripture and escape the fact that 

our sins are an “offense” to God and that

 there is going to be severe penalties to pay

 for our transgressions against God 

for Jesus continues to warn us by listing the consequences for our sinful actions.

 Jesus already listed one consequence 

(C1) “drown in the depth of the sea” and now Jesus throws in 

several more “visuals” for us to imagine in the form of punishment — 

(C2) “if your hand or foot causes you to sin, 

cut it off and cast it from you” (Matthew 18:8) — 

(C3) “if your eye causes you to sin, 

pluck it out and cast it from you” (Matthew 18:9) 

Then to make sure we understand that it is sin 

that causes us to lose our direction

 Jesus makes a clear definitive statement of why 

He is on earth Teaching us about sin when He says:

 “For the Son of Man has come 

to save that which is lost.” 

(Matthew 18:11)

 This section should Teach us that we should “repent” of our sin 

(which Jesus used the term “convert”)

 to avoid the penalty of sin that will be judged by God Himself and as always

 Jesus tells us how to resolve our sin problem 

and paints a “positive visual” of the judgement 

when He says that “if” we “convert” 

we will “see the kingdom of heaven” 

and twice Jesus used the term “enter into life” 

then Jesus promises that if we “become as children” 

we will have “angels” assigned to guard us 

from sin and that the “Father” in heaven 

will always look over His “converted” children 

— and the picture I got was that if I become as a little child 

that I will have a personal audience with [our] 

“Father who is in heaven” 

and be rewarded with eternal life rather than staying lost

 in my sin and end up with a 

“millstone hung around my neck” 

and 

“drowning in the depth of the sea”.

 Which vision fits your spiritual eye,

 

being cast into hell fire 

or 

entering into life 

being protected and provided for

 by our Father in heaven?