JULY 31 JQ#21-5 “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33) The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JULY 31   JQ#21-5  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33) 

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, thank You God for Your Patience with me and I pray to be more like Jesus that my patience will be perfected for perfection is only possible by being like the Perfect Example and that is Jesus, only Jesus has been declared “Beloved” by God and only Jesus has also been declared by God as “My Son in whom I am well pleased” and it is only Jesus that God instructs all that would try to please God that we should “Listen to [Jesus]” for Jesus has instructed us that we can be one with the Father if we will become one with Jesus for Jesus and the Father are one! Lord Jesus, teach me Your Patience that I can become one with You because in order to become One, I must completely get rid of “self” and learn to patiently “serve others” as You came and served the world.      AMEN

The Jesus Questions

JULY 31   JQ#21-5  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)  Jesus should have really grabbed our full attention when Peter walked into the room and Jesus told Peter in effect, “I know what you are going to ask me so let me ask you a question and show you that I AM God and I am able to both ‘anticipate’ your question and ‘answer’ your question while demonstrating the Power of God to ‘provide’ everything you need to solve all your problems yourself just by listening to me and obeying my instructions!” I know that when we read the account of Jesus sending Peter fishing to get the required “temple tax” found in Matthew 17:24-27 that Jesus doesn’t say all that but if we look at what Jesus did say then we can see that Jesus is revealing some very important Truths of God to us. First Jesus started revealing that God wants us to be involved in being the solution to our own problems which is an example of God’s Supreme Self Sufficiency. God is the only uncreated entity and does not need any outside help to be “who” God is and since God is Spirit we can say that to accomplish everything He wills to do, that God does not require any “physical” entity to accomplish His Will — this can only be explained by God having a “Spiritual Power” we cannot comprehend and this “Spiritual Power” exhibits itself through a “Supreme Intellect” that cannot be explained but it can be observed, and these “observations” of God’s Supreme Intellect are the foundation of our “Faith” which is based on observing the “physical” universe which is only here because God used His Superior and Supreme Intellect and merely “Spoke” everything except mankind into existence. God was Supremely Self Sufficient because everything He needed to Create the Universe was contained within God Himself and that is what Jesus is showing Peter when Jesus asked JQ#21 “What do you think, Simon?” (Matthew 17:25a) I am sure that Peter was taken aback by Jesus, first because Jesus “prevented” Peter from blurting out the “problem” which Jesus did to demonstrate that God knows what we need without even asking for it and also to demonstrate that we are made in the “image of God” and part of that “image” is that God wants us to develop the kind of “Faith” in Him that we will know that if God allows a problem into our lives that He will provide within our own abilities what we need to solve the problem. Just look at this passage and we read that the solution to this “problem” that Peter had was a solution that Peter had the ability to resolve and the solution was in Peter’s “comfort zone” because Jesus knew that Peter was a fisherman and therefore the “solution” was customized to those things Peter knew how to do as we read Jesus stating to Peter, “Then the sons are free. Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and five it to them for Me and you.” (Matthew 17:26-27).  Peter had done these very actions for his entire life and probable had caught literally thousands of fish but only when Peter did what he had been doing all his life the “way” Jesus told him to do it for the “purpose” that Jesus intended for Peter’s life, did the “miracle” become a reality in Peter’s daily life! Jesus is demonstrating that He KNOWS our problems and that He will PROVIDE within our daily lives and our natural abilities the solution if we will TRUST GOD. I am sure that Peter had never considered that he had everything in his daily life that he needed to solve life’s problems. It was probably very comforting to Peter to know that he didn’t have to learn any new skills and I know that Peter’s “Faith” grew leaps and bounds as soon as he reached down into the net and grabbed the “fish that [came] up first” and “[opened] its mouth” and found a single coin that was the exact amount to pay the temple tax for both Peter and Jesus and thus Peter demonstrated “self sufficiency” to resolve his problem but only when Peter did what he did day-in-and-day-out but did it in the Name of Jesus did Peter realize God is the God of our daily lives and that God will never require anything of us that He hasn’t already equipped us for, and we should Trust that God has us doing what we do in our daily lives because that is what we need to be doing to Honor and Glorify Him! Faith comes from observing God at work in our daily lives so if your “Faith” is not growing maybe you should stop and “think” more about the abilities God has given you and look for your solutions within those abilities or do you think God doesn’t know what you need to solve your problems?