APRIL 19 The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

April 19 / Day 51

365 Prayers to JESUS

Jesus, Lord I praise You for Your Faithfulness — I am amazed when I read a prayer lifted up to You (or as Pastor Steve says “spread it before the LORD”) that I wrote in 2004 (12 years ago) and realize that even though it took several years and the answer arrived in the most unexpected “Way” that the answer is definite and as is Your Divine Way, it is beyond our expectations and imaginations and the “looking back” at prayers lifted and faithfully answered it definitely “grows my Faith”. I am also learning that I am to lift my prayer to You and then “wait on the Lord” without telling You “How” to answer my prayer in the way I think it should be answered but to “trust God” and Your Perfect Way and Perfect Timing!

The Jesus Questions

 JQ#10 — The question: “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?” (Matthew 10:29a) should be considered in its entire context and so far we have noted that there are some very serious instructions being given. A reading of the verses Matthew 10:1-28 are instructions Jesus gave to His disciples as He was equipping them with “tools” to successfully share the Gospel of Christ Jesus with the world and Jesus made it very clear that this “sharing” is for a very serious purpose as “Consequences” such as eternal life in heaven and eternal damnation in hell is discussed. Jesus also showed the seriousness of understanding that our lives have a “physical” value and a “spiritual” value and that the ability of men to “kill” the “body” was inconsequential to the ability of God to “destroy” the “soul”. The world has told us the greatest thing to “fear” is our physical death but God reminds us that our physical lives are but a vapor and our bodies come from dust and at our death our physical bodies return to the earth from where it came. But of greater seriousness, our “soul” which God has made eternal returns to the Creator of our souls when the “physical body” dies. At the time of our physical death, the “body and soul” are separated and our “Eternal Soul” returns to Heaven and God. Jesus taught this same lesson to the most learned man in Jerusalem and a leader of the Jerusalem synagog in John 3:1-21 as Jesus tells Nicodemus “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) and again “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5) and Jesus tells Nicodemus that we have two births: (1) a “physical birth” which is of our earthly father and (2) a “Spiritual birth” which is from our heavenly “Father” as Jesus tells Nicodemus plainly “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Therefore when Jesus is training His disciples to share His Gospel, He asks the sparrow and copper coin question to make us consider the “value” of our earthly “body” and the lessons of the flesh as compared to the “value” of our “soul” and the lessons of the Spirit which contains “eternal life”. It is the “Choice” we make with our “Spirit” that has “Eternal Consequences”. Jesus gives us “Hope” because He also tells the disciples how to please God so that God will accept them in Heaven as Jesus tells the disciples: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 10:32) That is GOOD NEWS because we know the Father is “well pleased” with the Son and here the Son is telling us that He will accompany us to Heaven and present us Himself to “our Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Pleasing God is as simple as John 3:16 — read it for yourself and claim your promised eternal life!