MARCH 21 The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

March 21 / Day 22

365 Prayers to JESUS

Jesus, Praise You Lord for Your Great Love. Lord, as we seek to be more like You in every thing we do or try to accomplish with our lives that have been “crucified with Christ”, may all our actions reflect the Love for mankind by which You both lived and died, and then the Glory by which You were risen from the grave! Lord, please let us be aware that death is nothing but a gateway to eternity because You Lord defeated both death and the grave, and Your Victory came through Love and Obedience, which is my prayer today, that I may Love as You loved and be Obedient to the Father’s Will as You were Obedient, that the Father’s Mercy and Grace will flow freely in my life!

The Jesus Questions

JQ#5 - Today we will start on a new section and examine the next question in the great we text written by Matthew as he recorded so much of the Lord’s teachings, teachings based around our mental involvement, accomplished by a series of questions that make us stop and think about the material Jesus is discussing. We find our next question in Matthew 7:9 and the “context” is Matthew 7:7-14. Jesus starts this section by introducing some “success” principals: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7) Jesus will usually make a simple plain statement of “Spiritual Truth” and then He will fill in some extra details to help us see what it is that He is teaching us. Jesus makes this statement both personal and all inclusive when He immediately adds: “For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:8) This is consecutive sentences saying the same thing to add emphasis to the lesson but then in the second sentence Jesus makes the inclusive statement “For everyone…”. The whole intent of the Gospel is that all will be included into the kingdom. But, in order to be “included” we must learn the simple rules which God has chosen and always makes it perfectly clear that if we perform the actions God asks of us, we will get the predetermined results He has established. This is called the Law of Choice and Consequence established by the Creator and all laws apply to everyone, just like we all experience “gravity” and “…the rain falls on the just and the unjust…” and we all can enjoy and depend on the sun coming up each morning, all because God has said that is the way He has determine it will be. God in His Mercy has been Gracious in letting us know that He has given us Freewill in our lives and we are free to make our own choices but we are not free to determine the “consequence” of our actions as the result of our choices have already been determined by God so that “everyone” will have the confidence that God has determined “consequences” and we should use His Consistency of results to make an “informed decision” based upon on “constant” and “irrevocable consequence”. The Law of Choice and Consequence is simple and applies to “everyone” and God makes it perfectly clear that we are free to chose our actions but He reserves the right to dictate the consequence of the action we chose to perform. This section is a simple set of “Actions=Results” as we read “Seek=Find, Ask=Given, & Knock=Open”. God shows His Goodness by telling us the results of our choice and then He gives us some “Blessed Assurance” when He asks JQ#5: “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?”  Apply the Law of Choice and Consequence to this section in Matthew 7:7-14 and you’ll easily answer the LORD’s teaching questions.