AUGUST 26 JQ#22-6 “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 26   JQ#22-6  “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?”  (Matthew 20:15) 

365 Prayers to JESUS 

Jesus, You are worthy of all praise for there is no other that sacrificed so much for so many. Lord Jesus, without that Sacrifice there would be no “hope” and no “future”   for it is by Your Wounds that we are healed and by Your Blood we are washed clean from the sin that our earthen bodies are enslaved to. Lord it is a mystery how that Your Spirit can first break us and then make us new! Praise be to the Only Begotten of the Father that was Obedient unto death because the Father Resurrected the Son in whom He was well pleased on the Third Day thereby giving us reason to “hope” and trust that God the Father has a Plan for our “future”!!!     AMEN

The Jesus Questions

AUGUST 26   JQ#22-6  “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?”  (Matthew 20:15)   Jesus asked this question in JQ#22 “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things” through a parable designed to show us another perspective of heaven so that we could relate to heaven through something we are familiar with in our earthly lives, this is the only way that we will be able to envision heaven which in reality is so far different from earth that we cannot imagine what heaven is really going to be like! Because of our limited and finite knowledge and our experience being limited exclusively to our earthly lives and bodies, we do not have even the vocabulary to describe heaven, therefore Jesus taught about heaven using parables about things everyone is familiar with, and in this case Jesus uses a landowner who goes out and hires laborers. There are several lessons within the lesson that Jesus is teaching which enforces previous lessons Jesus has been teaching about our time on earth and the first and most obvious is that in our daily lives, whether we are the boss or the hired hand, both cases require us to go to work to sustain our daily existence. The boss has to work at hiring others to do the physical labor which will free him to do “boss work”. The parable is about heaven because Jesus says to start the parable, “For the kingdom of heaven is like” and then Jesus continues, “a landowner…” and concludes with  the “landowner” going “out early in the morning to hire laborers” to work in the “landowners vineyard”. (Matthew 20:1) Since we know that Jesus is teaching about “heaven” then the “landowner” is God and the “vineyard” is earth and we the people of earth are the “laborers”. The second lesson-within-the-lesson that we should learn is that God has chosen to use us to do His work on earth which enforces the fact that this has been God’s Plan from the beginning because we read in Genesis, “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden,…then the Lord God took the man [He had formed] and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and to keep it.” (Genesis 2:7-15) So it was God’s Plan to “plant a garden” and His Intent was that mankind would “tend to and keep” the garden for Him but we should not miss that man would be paid a wage for his labors for as soon as God put Adam in the garden of Eden God said, “of every tree of the garden you may freely eat…” (Genesis 2:16) Also in 1 Timothy 5:18 and Luke 10:7 we are told “the worker is worthy of his wages”  and Paul reminds the Thessalonians as he was teaching them about the kingdom of God, Paul said this about working, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat” therefore confirming that God’s Plan is unchanging and from the first Adam to the second Adam God is still expecting His Creation to live in a symbiotic relationship as part of His Divine Plan. In this current parable of the landowner Jesus points out that everyone’s wages are determined by a personal relationship with the landowner as we read that it was the landowner that “went out”  (Matthew 20:3) to find laborers and then the landowner himself “said to them” (Matthew 20:4a) which indicates that God is the Creator and it is God that initiates the relationship and that He makes each relationship personal as He seeks us out and personally arranges with us the terms of the relationship. Personally I found great comfort when I read the “landowners” terms: “whatever is right I will give you…”!!!  (Matthew 20:4b) To me I saw God as a Merciful and Gracious God that is Faithful and Just in His dealings with His Creation which not only does God keep the relationship on a personal level but He also guarantees that “whatever is right” that God will provide for me!! Jesus then taught that God reserves the right to maintain His Sovereignty as Jesus then taught the Truth of God that God is Sovereign over all creation and that whatever God declares “lawful” will be “right” and that we should trust Him because God has promised to do “whatever is right” — don't you think that trusting God who wants to “give” good things to us is better than trusting in the “doctrines of men” which even though they “promise” us good things, the reality is that those that seek to control others are always motivated by self-interest and the relationship with power mongers always results in more being taken from us than is given to us. You can decide for yourself but I choose to go with God and trust in His Mercy and Grace ------ you can follow the “legalist” who want to control your every decision but I advise you to keep your eyes on them every second and your hand on your pocketbook!