AUGUST 16 JQ#21-21 “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 16   JQ#21-21  “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, each day presents new opportunities to serve and through that service to others we will Glorify the Father as You did when You lived the Perfect Life as an example for us to turn from our selfishness. Staying stuck on ourself always leads to sin and turning from our selfishness to following your example and serving others always leads to God and His Plan of Salvation through our helping others. If You Jesus, being the King of all kings, will gird Yourself with a towel and wash our feet, why do we shirk the responsibility of serving our fellow man, Lord grant me a servant’s heart that I will always seek to think of others before thinking about myself, because when I am thinking of others and serving them as You Yourself served, then I trust that the Father God will see You in me and not the sinner that I was when I was lost in my selfishness — forgive me when I fail You and I pray daily to be filled with the Holy Spirit and centered in Your Will and that all that I do will Honor the Father.    AMEN

The Jesus Questions

AUGUST 16   JQ#21-21  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)  Jesus makes a point of asking us to “think” and then He presents the problem and the solution. The fact that Jesus asks us to “think” for ourselves and then presents the problem is a good indication that He is pointing us to both the “source” and the “solution” as being within ourselves. Jesus is telling us that we have the ability to “observe” and “reason” and then He presents the problem of sin. Jesus never presents a problem to us without giving us a solution and with this section of scripture Jesus is “Teaching” us that we cause the sin problem ourselves and the solution to our personal sin problem is to observe our actions that are resulting in sin and to use our God-given resources to recognize that our sin is just that — it is “OUR” sin!!! Once we can find the source of our problem then we can “fix” the problem and Jesus has shown us that to correct “our” sin against God that we must take personal responsibility for our actions that result in sin and to turn from those actions and rely on our “Faith in God”.  The Lesson that Jesus is teaching us on correcting “our” sin problem is to come to Him when He calls us. Jesus says that we must “humble” ourselves like a “little child” to “enter the kingdom of heaven” and that we must “receive” Jesus Himself.  Jesus told the disciples that “Whoever receives one little child like this in my Name receives Me.” (Matthew 18:5) Jesus had just called a little child to Himself and the child had obeyed and had come to Him and Jesus had sat the child in their midst and then started teaching about “sin”. Jesus made it clear that to solve “our” sin problem that we would have to come to Him and humble ourselves as the little child had done. Jesus then said that solving our sin problem would be rewarded with the right to “enter into life” and if we failed to resolve our sin problem we would be “cast into hell fire”. There is a big difference between the actions of freely “entering” or unwillingly being “cast” into our eternal destination! Then there is the destination itself to consider: (1) “the kingdom of heaven” and (2) “everlasting fire” in “hell”. If we think about it, we at first will think to ourselves, “No way would I ‘enter’ willingly into ‘hell’ — which is exactly the point Jesus is making about being “cast into” our punishment which implies that we will have to go to hell because of our actions resulting in sin even if we don’t want to go — because a Higher Power who has reserved the authority to determine the consequence of our choices has judged our sin and we have been found “guilty”.  Our penalty is executed resulting in us being “cast into hell fire” because of our “choices” regardless of our “desires or want to”! Jesus uses the term “enter into life” which also teaches us that we are “dead” until we “enter into life” and so if we fail to “enter into life” because we remain in our sin then we can say that if we “choose our sin” instead of humbling ourselves before Jesus when He calls, then we have chosen death for the only path to “life” is through Jesus, all other paths keep us “lost” in our “sin” and there is no “life” in “sin” ——— only “death” which is the absence of “life”. The eternal residence of sin is “hell” and the “Promise of God” is that If we turn from our sin to Jesus we will “enter” the kingdom of God through our belief in Jesus but if we choose not to “receive” Jesus then we will remain dead in our sin and will be cast into hell and the everlasting fire. There is a very good reason Jesus first tells us to “think” and then presents the Truth of God that Jesus Himself is the “way, the truth, and the life…No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) Can you “think” of a clearer way to present our problem and our solution and the rewards and penalties for how God Himself will deal with “our” sin?