AUGUST 12 JQ#21-17 “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

AUGUST 12   JQ#21-17  “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, Precious Jesus, Thank You, You took my sins away, and I want to thank You for all that You’ve done, so this is the prayer that I pray — Please grant it Lord that I may grow strong, yet give more than I take. Teach me to lean on Jesus my King and guide me each step that I take. In all that I do let Your Love Shine through, that lost sheep might find the way and come back Home to this Peace I’ve known — this is the prayer I pray. Praise to God from whom ALL Blessing flow, forgive me of my daily sins, and create in me a clean heart, O God!     AMEN

The Jesus Questions

AUGUST 12   JQ#21-17  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)   Jesus always gave us a living example of the lessons He was teaching and each lesson reveals a Truth of God so that we may know who God is by knowing His Truth. I have always asked the question: “Couldn’t there have been some other way for our sins to be forgiven other than God having to send His Son to Sacrifice Himself for our sins?” There has been one answer that the Holy Spirit gives me and it is in the form of a question as my heart and soul hears: “Why do you question God?” When I stop and “think” about it, I come to the conclusion that instead of questioning God that I should look to see what Truth of God is revealed in the things that He does! So instead of asking “why would God sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for my sin” I make this observation and I see that (1) the creator God that can do all things without my help has made a Personal Decision to help those that He certainly doesn’t need any help from! (2) not only did God help others who cannot repay Him for His Divine Help, He used His Most Precious Possession to accomplish His Desire to do “Good” for others (3) God had no motivation to make His Decision except His Own Pure Character of Mercy (4) Besides proving Himself to be a Merciful God, He also reveals that He is a Loving God for we know that our sin is nothing but rebellion against God and even though God Knows all things and Knows that we are undeserving of love, God pours out His Compassion on us and proves He is a Gracious and Compassionate God and finally (5) The fact that God would send HIs Son to die a cruel death for our sin proves that God is an “Unchanging” and “Just” God because God said in the beginning of the world that sin must be punished by death and my worldly thoughts say that “if I make a rule and I am in charge of enforcing that rule then I can change the rule if I want to” but God proves He is a God that NEVER changes and the rules apply to everyone and will be enforced fairly and justly. When we question God we are using the world’s standard of ever-changing priorities but when we observe God from the point of Truth we see that God’s Standard is the only True and Fair Standard by which all mankind should judge ourselves by them and have confidence that God will judge others by the same fair standard which NEVER CHANGES, and we know His Standards NEVER change because God Himself NEVER CHANGES. So the Truth of God is that sin MUST be punished and the Compassion of God (For God so loved the world) is demonstrated by His Grace towards sinners (that He gave His only begotten Son) by providing Himself a Sacrifice for our sin problem (that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16) and God goes the extra mile in that not only will we not “perish” but God rewards our “belief in His Son” with “everlasting life”!  The fact that “sin” is a problem in the world is not what is being disputed by mankind, mankind just does not want to admit that “sin” is a problem that we are personally responsible for our own sin, but that we cannot solve the sin-problem ourselves and must turn to God for the solution. This is God’s Plan of Salvation in a nutshell: God gave us Free Will but we used it poorly and chose to sin instead of following God and we ended up lost in our sin. Once lost in sin, we cannot see our way back to the TRUTH and we are to proud to ask for directions. God however RESCUES us from our sin but in Honor of His Gift of Free Will to us, God will not “force” the RESCUE on us but waits for our call for “Help!” which comes when we REPENT of our sin and call out to God for His Mercy. When God hears our cry, He immediately “RESCUES” us which we call “SALVATION”. My question to those that read this passage is simply “Why do you not accept God’s Help instead of questioning ‘why’ He is such a Good, Kind, Gracious, and Forgiving God?”