JANUARY 04 THE JESUS QUESTIONS Introduction-04: Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#33 (Matthew 1:1 thru 3:17)

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JANUARY  04  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   Introduction-04: Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#33  (Matthew 1:1 thru 3:17) 

004 of 365 - Prayers to JESUS    

Jesus, I awoke this morning with the need to pray first in my mind and when I started to pray there was some sort of “spiritual” distraction of unknown origin that seemed to prevent me from praying in “Spirit and in Truth” and I was disturbed. I lay in bed and struggled to “commune” with God but the “perceived separation” caused me great uneasiness! After meditating on “cause” and coming up empty, I then thought about the “effect” and almost immediately I was confident that I was being given a “taste” of going on my journey alone. Jesus, I am also confident that I no longer want to walk by myself and be alone as I traverse this “valley of the shadow of death” and I praise You for the glimpse of where I could end up being if I had not started following You.  Lord Jesus, You simply told Your disciples “Come follow Me” and You still today invite those that do not wish to travel this journey of life alone to “walk” with You, and in walking the extra mile with us You add the promise that You will never leave us nor forsake us! The “glimpse” today was a reminder to me that if we get separated it will be my fault — Lord Jesus, keep me focused then on “following Your LIGHT”  and always staying on Your paths of righteousness!     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JANUARY  04  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   Introduction-04: Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#33  (Matthew 1:1 thru 3:17) Jesus and who He “really is” has been a topic of debate from  before He arrived on earth and who He “really is” is still being debated today. It is very interesting to note that there is a great “double standard” being applied to the debate on the “person and purpose” of Jesus and whether or not He should be given the title of “Christ”. The “double standard” that glares out to this layman is that in our highly “legal” society here in America today that our government is dominated by “lawyers” and the government now has more “control” over our lives than anytime in the past so logically we must admit that as a society we are being led by professional “legalists” who have become (through the power of legislation that we have given them) “elitists” and impose their “legalist” mindset on the very people that endowed them with their power! No matter the dispute, the final decision rests with our “legal” system of judges and lawyers as per the “legislation” passed by our “law makers” — laws that include the “right” to kill the unborn which should give us a clue as to what the main problem with our society “really is”! In our society there are laws addressing “slander” (the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation)  and “libel” (a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation) which directly apply to the debate on who Jesus “really is” and the “double standard” (a rule or principle that is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups) which is prevalent in this ongoing debate. I am sure that in the highly legalist religious system of the Pharisees and Sadducees that there were the same such “laws” existing in Israel and therefore the New Testament writers would have been held accountable in their legal system. All the writers of the New Testament were not only “evangelists” that were stating Jesus had addressed problems with the “legal authority” of the Pharisees and Sadducees but they wrote it as a matter of public record! Jesus Himself by today’s standards would be labeled a “terrorist” because He made “direct threats” against their legal system and said the temple itself would be destroyed — just imagine if someone today said that the U.S. Government, the White House and our legal system was going to be “destroyed” and this person was directly claiming that the U. S. Government's  “rule” would be “taken from them” and further if that person was publishing documents and writing letters stating how the government would be overthrown, that person would be arrested and his statements and writings would be used to convict him of crimes against the government and would carry the severest penalty! However in today’s society the very evidence that would be used to convict Jesus of being a “terrorist”  would not be allowed in the same courtroom to prove that Jesus was and IS who the Bible documents Him TO BE!!!  So as we begin our Journey to discover TRUTH then we must have some kind of Moral Standard which will be used to determine the final verdict as to the validity of TRUTH itself!>!>!>! Because the Moral Standard itself is in the hands of legalist who control both the Moral Standard and our government that imposes their will on “we the people”, then we can see the problem of letting a “special interest” group decide on the Moral Standard to be applied to our entire society (by force and legal action). St. Matthew wrote a document dated C. A.D. 50 which puts his “eyewitness” account very close to the actual event of which he wrote and the “facts” that St. Matthew wrote down would have been highly scrutinized by the legalist of that era and all the claims that St. Matthew put in his document would have been “judged” as to it being “libel” based on “slander” which was directed against the “reputation” of those that were in “power”! To be fair we must read the document and ask ourselves, “If St. Matthew did not write what is true then why has there been so many printed copies and why was Matthew made a ‘Saint’ instead of being punished for his crime?”