JULY 22 JQ#20-3 “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17) The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JULY 22   JQ#20-3  “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17) 

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, You Lord are not boundaries by “time” and therefore I praise You for Your Timelessness in both hearing our prayers and answering them in the “Way” that is best for us and at the “time” that benefits us the most in our spiritual growth — Lord I feel led to pray again the same prayer the Holy Spirit led me to pray on July 22, 2004 because Your Truth NEVER CHANGES: (Prayer from 7/22/04) “Jesus, You came down from Glory and became Flesh, giving up Heaven and the Highest Position in God’s Kingdom to become a man living among sinners. Yet, You did not make a great position for Yourself on earth, in fact You took on no position, no title, no power over man but instead You used all Your Power to Teach man about God while You took on the form of a servant. Lord, please take my desire to be “important”, to be “someone”  men look up to and let me instead desire to be “important” not to myself but to helping and serving others and sharing Your Great Love with the world.”      AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JULY 22   JQ#20-3  “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17)    Jesus has asked some very serious questions and they have been asked to get us thinking in terms of the “Spiritual” aspect of our lives and to consider that our “physical” lives are “temporary” but absolutely “necessary” to understanding the “purpose” of our daily lives lived in the flesh on this earth?  With JQ#17 Jesus demonstrated that God is aware that we need “daily bread” to survive in the flesh but Jesus taught by performing the miracle of feeding “four thousand men, besides women and children” (Matthew 15:38) which demonstrated that God will provide abundantly the “physical” needs but He only does so when we recognize the “Spiritual” needs life presents. Jesus used the phrase “wicked and adulterous generation” to describe our “physical” lives and called us “hypocrites” just before asking JQ#17 so what was He trying to teach? Jesus then taught that when we understood the depravity of our “physical” lives that we would be given a “Spiritual” sign (Matthew 16:4) and that sign was “the sign of the prophet Jonah” — Jesus with JQ#17 is introducing the concept of the “Resurrection” because Jonah was 3 days in the belly of a great fish and on the 3rd day Jonah was “resurrected” — Jesus also used the title “prophet Jonah” which everyone understood that “prophets” were delivering the “message of God” so with Jonah Jesus demonstrated that God is the power behind the “resurrection” and that He has a plan for our lives. Jesus then moved to JQ#18 where He asked the disciples “Who do you say I am?” then commended Peter for Peter’s answer “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). So now the progression is Jesus taking a “physical” circumstance then showing how applying the “Spiritual Power of God” to it that the results are “miraculous” as 4000 were fed with a “seven loaves and a few fish” then reminding us of the “miracle” of Jonah being consumed by a great fish but then was “resurrected” on the third day, once again these are “physical” impossibilities and only through the intervention of the “Spiritual Power of God” can “physical impossibilities” become demonstrations of God’s control over the “physical” by bringing His Spiritual Power to bear over our circumstances! Then Jesus continues these lessons of the “Spiritual” having power over the “physical” when in JQ#19 Jesus introduces the lesson by stating to His disciples that He Himself would demonstrate God’s Ultimate Power over the physical as Jesus said that He would “go to Jerusalem…and be killed, and be raised the third day”! Jesus uses these “physical” circumstances to ask the “spiritual” question to get us thinking that who we are as individuals consists of our “physical bodies” and more importantly to God, we are also “Spiritual” in our nature and Jesus says this “Spiritual nature” resides in our “souls” which are “eternal” — then Jesus introduces the “Judgement of God” when He asks “what will man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) So with Jesus bringing our attention to the importance of distinguishing between the “physical” and the “spiritual” and assigning “everlasting” importance to concentrating on using the “Spiritual” to control the “physical” we should then pay close attention to those aspects when Jesus again describes our “physical” lives once again with a critical phrase “faithless and perverse generation” and then introduces the concept that to fulfill God’s Will for Him that He must “depart” from us after His “death” as He asks JQ#20 “how long shall I be with you?” and also “how long shall I bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17) Jesus then used His Spiritual Power given to Him by God the Father as Jesus “rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour.” (Matthew 17:18) Again Jesus used another “physical” circumstance to prove the “Superiority of the Spiritual Power of God” over every “physical” circumstance. JQ#20 is another good opportunity to take a “spiritual” inventory of our “physical” lives and consider that our “physical” lives come with an “expiration date” but that our “souls” are both “spiritual” and “eternal” ——— or are you not concerned what God thinks about our human bodies destined for the grave?