LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional
MAY 16 SUMMARY REVIEW OF THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#1-13
365 Prayers to JESUS
Jesus, Lord, may thanksgiving and praise always be on my lips for You Lord have blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined and certainly more than I deserve. Jesus, thank You for showing me that True Blessings are so much more valuable than anything money can buy! Lord, to know that we are held safe in the hands of the Father and that His Perfect Will is directed towards only “good” for us is the most comforting assurance life can provide, and we know that You, Lord Jesus are THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE — Praise God from Whom ALL BLESSINGS flow. AMEN
The Jesus Questions
SRJQ#1-13(Day 3) — Summary Review of The Jesus Questions JQ#1 - JQ#13. Each of the Jesus Questions were asked by The Master Teacher, not to gain information from His listeners but to impart wisdom to His listeners. Those that take the time to “listen” to Jesus and honestly “answer” His questions will learn very valuable lessons — below is a Summary Review of the 13 Jesus Questions that have been studied so far in Matthew:
Lesson 1 JQ#1 “Are you salt and light?” Matthew 5:1-16
Jesus had compassion on the multitudes and taught His famous “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5:1-13 and then after encouraging the multitudes with His Beatitudes which teaches us what must be done with our earthly lives in order to obtain our inheritance in “the kingdom of heaven” Jesus then asks His first personal question by making us think about ourselves and to consider that what we are actually doing with our lives has a direct impact on our inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus states emphatically: “You are the salt of the earth;…” (Matthew 5:12a) and then He promotes the concept of the necessity to get personally involved as Jesus introduces the Law of Choice and Consequence which illustrates our personal responsibility to exercise our “Free Will” to promote the kingdom of God. Jesus declares that we “are the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” then immediately Jesus asks us to consider the “consequence” of not using our personal talents and abilities to promote the kingdom when He asks us to consider the “consequence” if “salt… loses its flavor “ or if a “light” is “put under a basket”? Jesus then tells us very clearly that if we “lose [our] flavor’ then we are “good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” and it is obvious that if a light is put under a basket is is useless! Thus with JQ#1 Jesus demonstrates that if we follow Him and take on the name Christian that our responsibility is to be “salt and light” for the kingdom’s sake but if we fail in that responsibility that we will have to suffer the “consequence” that is the “Truth of God” which states: “We are free to choose our actions but we are not free to choose the consequence of that action for God has already determined the consequence of our choices!” so that implies personal responsibility to “listen and obey” all that God has prepared as “lessons” for our lives, which are to be lived for “His Glory” and the Kingdom’s Sake! There is no denying that if we look at this first Jesus Question that we will learn several lessons about our personal responsibility to the kingdom of God but the greatest lesson is that God has provided for us and expects our personal involvement in accomplishing His Kingdom Work here on earth during each individuals lifetime. Our first lesson to learn is that God wants us to understand that He has chosen to use His followers to lead others to the ‘Kingdom of God” by the way we live our lives and not by who we say we are. We are the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” and our responsibility to the kingdom is laid out plain and clear as Jesus ends the lesson with: “Let you light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) If Jesus starts His lessons by teaching us that we have a personal responsibility, don’t you think that He will layout and make clear all that He requires of us as “followers”?
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