APRIL 1 The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

April 1 / Day 33

365 Prayers to JESUS

Jesus, Lord I pray that Your Spirit will continue to consume me, Lord I proclaim as Paul did, I know that I have not yet attained the goal but I press on to the finish which is a race that I cannot run on my own strength, Lord I need You, I need Your daily Mercy and Grace and I do TRUST You to finish the good work You have begun in me. There is nothing in me that can move towards the prize of the high calling of service to the Kingdom so therefore refresh and renew in me a “Right Spirit” and “create in me a clean heart O God”!

The Jesus Questions

JQ#7 - “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26) has been a most revealing question asked by our Lord and we haven’t really considered the context in which this question was asked. We looked at the immediate circumstance of them being in a “great tempest” after following Jesus onto a boat and while the disciples panicked, Jesus was sleeping. Of course, we like the disciples, see the waves and the tempest and we consider the physical consequences of drowning but miss the spiritual consequences of (1) following Jesus and (2) trusting Him to “calm” even the worst “tempest” and (3) to know that our “faith” in JESUS is the only thing with “eternal” consequences. The larger context of the circumstances of the “teachings” of Jesus to the disciples should also be observed in terms of what were the disciples seeing Jesus do that should have built their “faith” in His Power and Divine Nature — After Jesus taught the disciples the parable of the “two builders” (Matthew 7:24-27) where Jesus introduced the concept that we should build the foundation of our faith on “solid rock”, Jesus then laid the “ground floor” of our faith by (1) healing the servant of a centurion and Jesus tied His Healing Power to our faith building when Jesus told the centurion (1) “I will come and heal him.” (Matthew 8:7) and (2) “Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go our way; as you have believed, so let it be done for you.’ And his servant was healed that same hour.” (Matthew 8:13). Jesus continued His lesson on His Healing Power when next He came to Peter’s house “ … He saw [Peter’s] wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.” (Matthew 8:14-15) That very same evening the disciples witnessed the villagers where Peter lived bring “to [JESUS] many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick…” (Matthew 8:16) So Jesus gives the parable of the two builders to encourage the disciples to “build their faith” on Him and then He immediately demonstrates His Divine Power and Compassion for all people by “healing” their physical and spiritual ailments and then just like the disciples hadn’t seen these Divine Attributes of Jesus, they get into a boat, the boat gets in a great storm, and the disciples go into full panic mode, and the first thing Jesus says upon awakening is “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26) JQ#7 should awaken us to the “obvious” that Jesus is in control of our physical and spiritual worlds and that He also has control over the natural world. If we look at Resurrection Sunday we will see that He has control over our eternity as well so “Why are we fearful of the world and death” when all we have to do is to have FAITH in the ONE who died for our sins and rose the third day and sits at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us? Jesus gave us all the materials we need to build our “faith” but He wants us to hammer a nail or two ourselves.