MARCH 24 The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

March 24 / Day 25

365 Prayers to JESUS

Jesus, Praise You Lord Jesus for the work that You have given us to do in Your Name. We know that You can do all things and that in reality You do not need us but You chose to let us partake in the Kingdom Work. O Blessed thought that Your Spirit empowers us and we can proclaim because of Your Grace that we “can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” (Philippians 4:13) Lord I praise You not because I am not of any value to You because of the deeds I d0 — You value me because that is what You have chosen to do so that I can quote You with great joy, “I have chosen you, Lanny, to be My own precious possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:60 Lord Jesus, I pray daily to be crucified that daily I may be raised with You for I pray as did John, “[Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)

The Jesus Questions

JQ#5 - In Matthew 7:9-10 Jesus asks questions with obvious answers and I believe that Jesus does this to make us realize that we overlook the obvious about the Father in Heaven. Obvious is the fact that if an Almighty God that can do anything His heart desires choses to send His Only Begotten Son to become one of us that His intentions for us are only good. God would not give His Only Begotten Son a “stone” if the Son “asks for bread” and the Loving Father would not give His Beloved Son a “serpent” if He asked for a “fish”!! This should be obvious to us that the Father desires good things for us and Jesus almost reprimands us for not understanding the “obvious” because Jesus immediately scolds us instead of giving the answer to His two obvious questions in Matthew 7:9-10 by stating the obvious to us: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11) The fact is that God desires good for all men and is teaching us that to be like Him. We also should desire good for others as Jesus immediately follows the obvious with: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) If we study the teachings of the “Law” and the “Prophets” the main theme God teaches us over and over are that we are to desire good for others and not evil. All ten of His commandments God gave as the “Law” to Moses deal with how to prevent being “evil” and all the Prophets deal with man choosing evil and the judgment that follows (more examples of the “Law of Choice and Consequences”) and then we have Jesus stating emphatically that He came “to fulfill the Law” (Matthew 5:17”) and later Jesus says “A new commandment I give you, Love one another.” I feel that one cannot read the Bible as a whole without seeing a Loving Father who wants only good for His Family which God has provided a “Way” for us to be heirs with Him…God came to the world of fallen man and offered Kinship and “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” It should be obvious that the Father in Heaven Loves us and desires only good for His children—all we need to do is to “ask” and “seek” the narrow gate and know the loving Father will  “open” whenever we “knock”. (Matthew 7:13-14).