AUGUST 23 JQ#22-3 “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” (Matthew 20:15) The Jesus Questions

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

AUGUST 23   JQ#22-3  “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?”  (Matthew 20:15) 

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, I have failed You in so many ways but Lord, I turn to You and to You alone for Forgiveness of my weakness of mind and my desire to satisfy my selfish desires. I know that “wanting” anything but Your purpose in my life is wrong. How can I pray for the Holy Spirit to fill me when I hold a memory of my old sin-ways locked deep in a special treasure box? There is nothing I think or do that God cannot see and yet I think I can hold back a part of my old sinful self and hide it from God?  NO! I yield it ALL to God, and pray not my will but THY Will be done in my life. I can make no decisions for myself any longer that is outside the Will of God, I can only work to achieve His purpose with whatever condition I find myself in. {Re-written from August 22, 2004}      AMEN

The Jesus Questions

AUGUST 23   JQ#22-3  “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?”  (Matthew 20:15)   Jesus is always directing His Questions to a specific detail of God’s Truth such as JQ#21 drew our attention to the problem of sin which drew our attention to the great extent that God Himself has gone to in order to resolve our sin issue and now in JQ#22 Jesus is using a parable to summarize another problem that we encounter in living our daily lives that if we are not fully aware of the issue then we will be unwillingly obeying the “doctrines of men” instead of the “commandments of God”! For example, Jesus begins this section with another encounter with the Pharisees who were the religious legalists of His time on earth and specifically the subject of divorce. Jesus rebutted the arguments the Pharisees were making by going back to God’s original intent for marriage by stating the Genesis account of the original creation: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Jesus continued from the original account in the Holy Scriptures with the original intent of God regarding marriage as He referred to this passage: “…But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:20-24) By going back and referring to the account of the original creation of man by God from the same Holy Scriptures the Pharisees were trying to make their argument from and reminding the Pharisees how God Himself instituted the first marriage between the first man and the first woman, the Pharisees could not argue against the Truth of God’s own actions and thereby Jesus completely nullified any argument the Pharisees tried to make about Moses allowing the Israelites to divorce “legally”. It is most important to note that the Pharisees were trying to use the argument that because it was “legal” for a previous generation because a prophet of God had said so then it should be “legal” for this generation because of “legal precedence” which is the main legalist argument of our present generation. However, Jesus reminded them of the Truth of God that even the prophets of God, even one with the stature of Moses, is not above the Law of God, for Moses was not allowed into the “Promised Land” because Moses had disobeyed God’s instruction to “speak to the rock” (Numbers 20:8) so the Pharisees argument that it was “legal” to divorce their wives because Moses, being the representative of God, had said divorce was “legal”, proved the Truth of God that what is “legal” in God’s Judgment is not what God’s prophet declares “legal” but what God Himself declares as “legal”. Jesus summed up this important Truth of God as Jesus shut down the Pharisees argument that Moses said it was “OK” to divorce when Jesus concluded with this statement: “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:6b) Jesus continues this lesson on the problem of “following the doctrines of men” verses “obeying the commandments of God” by using “children” to show God’s Truth just like when the disciples were arguing about “who’s the greatest in heaven” and Jesus set a young child in their midst and said that they must become as little children to even enter the kingdom of heaven and here again the disciples were rebuking those that were bringing their little children to Jesus for healing that Jesus once again demonstrated that what they thought was the “proper” behavior for children was not what God intended so “Jesus said, Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14) Don’t you think if the disciples that were 24/7 listening to Jesus could be wrong about their daily lives and the way they treated others had to be reminded that what we think God intended is not what God has demonstrated, then don’t you think we would be wise to re-evaluate our “traditions” to weed out those things we do that are the “doctrine of men” and make sure that we are “following the commands of God” in our daily lives?!?!?