DECEMBER 19 THE JESUS QUESTIONS SUMMARY-06 of the Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#31 (Matthew 1:1 thru 26:16)

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

DECEMBER  19  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   SUMMARY-06 of the Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#31  (Matthew 1:1 thru 26:16) 

365 Prayers to JESUS    

Jesus, my prayer is to be totally dependent on Your Mercy and Grace to lead me where You will. Lord, I pray not to be free of worldly influences but rather my prayer is to have the discernment to see past the world and the deceit of this world to Your Truth and to Trust Your Holy Spirit to take whatever worldly circumstance that I find myself in and use it to witness to Your Great Love — for there is nothing or no one that cannot benefit from Grace which You have provided so abundantly. Keep our hearts and eyes open to those times when we can take the circumstances of the world and use them to witness to your Glory.     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

DECEMBER  19  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   SUMMARY-06 of the Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#31  (Matthew 1:1 thru 26:16)  Jesus has already in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew fulfilled more prophecies than any one before Him and certainly anyone after Him and since His Birth, Life, Death by Crucifixion, Burial in a “borrowed” Tomb, and then His Glorious Resurrection on the Third Day have been documented by so many sources and written down and confirmed that there NEVER will be anyone after JESUS that can have the facts of His Life be the PROOF that He is the SON OF GOD. It is not often stated some of the obvious things that must fall in place for all the prophecies in the Old Testament to be fulfilled and the odds of one man fulfilling half a dozen of the prophecies is mathematically impossible — and if we look at just the “odds” from a numerical standpoint then if one man fulfilling more than 6 is impossible then what is the phrase that would have to be invented for a second person to fulfill more than the first person?!?!? The “odds” are so great that one man could fulfill ALL of the prophecies that many find it hard to believe it to be possible and choose to believe that all of this “prophecy” stuff and “the Jesus story” is a “fairy tale” — which is still one of the arguments against Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit today and prevents many people from believing, and many of these same “unbelievers” are the very ones that seek “proof” that Jesus is the Son of God and that God Himself exists are the very ones that refuse to look at “eyewitness” accounts such as each of the individual Gospels. If we think of simple things like facts that must be true of the Messiah and we see things like the Messiah is a Jewish male born in Judea and that He would have to be “sacrificed” to make atonement  for the sins of His people and not just any “sacrifice” but a unique death at the hands of a foreign government then when we look at the simple facts and see one Jewish male that is born in Bethlehem start teaching “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” then eyes are opened! Matthew did not know Jesus until after Jesus had started His ministry and Matthew was called by Jesus as an Apostle — Jesus called each of His Apostles individually and because Jesus IS the Son of God that He knew the “purpose” each of the Apostles were called for and it is easy to imagine that Jesus “knew” that Matthew would naturally learn everything he could about Jesus and His life and would eventually write the Gospel that would be an eyewitness account to the fulfilling of Jewish prophecy by Jesus, and Matthew being a studied and educated Jew himself would see the significance of the simple facts of the life of Jesus. I can just imagine what Matthew felt like when he started following Jesus and hearing from the other apostles stories about the parents of Jesus and when Matthew traced the genealogy of Jesus back to King David that Matthew knew that there was something special about this first born Jewish male that could trace His genealogy back to King David! But can you imagine how Matthew felt when he learned the story that the mother of Jesus told about her firstborn son that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirt and that she was a “virgin” when she gave birth to Jesus and then Mary and Joseph both told of the visit from Gabriel and Gabriel telling them to “call Him Jesus for He will save the people from their sins”!!! I can also imagine that Matthew started taking notes and studying the prophecies of the MESSIAH even more because already Jesus had fulfilled probably the three most basic but difficult prophecies for no one can choose where they are born nor whom their parents are much less who the parents of the parents are — and to make Jesus and the Messiah unique we have the “virgin birth” prophecy — and no one can choose that their mother be a “virgin” and give birth!!! Those ARE IMPOSSIBLE things for man, but that makes the HOLY SCRIPTURE valid when it clearly states, “with man it is impossible but with God, all things are possible.” I am sure that Matthew started writing furiously when he heard Mary and Joseph tell the story of the “virgin birth” and I am sure that God fully intended for Matthew to be the one to write the Gospel and document this “impossibility” of Jesus — for the TRUTH is that it indeed is “impossible” for man to fulfill prophecy, only GOD can fulfill prophecy and only the Son of God could be “virgin born”!!! The first four chapters of Matthew then documents through eyewitness accounts all the simple facts of the life of Jesus that points to the Divine Truth that Jesus is the Son of God!!!