MARCH 26 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#11-04 >>> Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus <<< JQ#11 “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7)

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

MARCH 26  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#11-04 >>> Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus <<< JQ#11 “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7)

086 of 365 - Prayers to JESUS    

Jesus, Lord I give You and the Holy Spirit Praise for the wonderful lesson on evangelism that You taught in our 3rd Grade Sunday School class using John 3:16. Lord it is so exciting to see You move and as the Teacher of these really bright young Christians and I feel really “Blessed” to be learning about You through them! Lord, may I never lose sight that You and the Holy Spirit are the Master Teachers and always keep me aware when You have taken over so that I will not get in the way of Your Lessons, especially one that Taught 3rd Graders both “how” and “why” they should “share” the Good News! Lord, how my heart leaped as each one took their turn being an “evangelist” and shared so powerfully, all Praise, Glory, and Honor to the Holy Spirit for empowering them!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

MARCH 26  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#11-04 >>> Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus <<< JQ#11 “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7) Jesus always asks a simple Question which can immediately be rephrased as a Divine Spiritual Inquiry which is the case of JQ#11 which can be written as:  “What are your spiritual expectations of Jesus?” (Matthew 11:7). The actual JESUS Question asked was from a series of Questions asking basically the same thing as we read these Questions in Matthew 11:7-9. The important context of the Question was that the disciples of John the Baptist had come to question Jesus with the intent of determining if Jesus was the “Coming One” that John the Baptist had been preaching about in the wilderness? The multitudes had been traveling out into the wilderness to hear John the Baptist preach “Repentance” and the soon coming “Christ”. John was considered by all Israel as a prophet and even the Jewish priests and leaders acknowledged that John was preaching in the Power of God!  We read in John 1:19-20 “Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ [John] confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ’” (John 1:19-20) From this passage we can determine that John had been preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand and that the long awaited Christ was “coming” and John’s message was so powerful that all Israel was talking again about the “Coming Messiah”. God’s prophets had been silent now for about 400 years so John appears on the scene and now everyone is “expectant” that the Messiah has come just as the prophecies had promised! After John had “confessed” that he was not the Christ, John then quoted the prophet Isaiah: “[John] said: ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23 & Isaiah 40:3) So when Jesus lists His earthly accomplishments to the disciples of John, Jesus was in effect telling everyone that because of the “work” that He had been doing among the people of Israel that He was indeed the “Messiah” that they had been “expecting”!!!  The important thing to note here is that Jesus lists the events that proved He was indeed the Messiah but immediately after stating the Divine Truth that JESUS IS THE MESSIAH that He turned and asked this Question to the enlightened multitudes — “What did you expect?” (Matthew 11:7-9A) and then added this statement about what they had expected to find: “A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.” (Matthew 11:9B)  As we read the Gospels and throughout the entire New Testament Jesus is doing everything the prophecies said the Messiah would do and yet it took His death, burial, and Resurrection before even Jesus’ own disciples believed that Jesus was Truly the Son of God, the Messiah. The same problem exists in the Church today as we declare like a modern day Thomas : “…unless I see in His hands the print of the nails…I will not believe…” (John 20:25) Jesus knew there would be doubt and He is Teaching in JQ#11 that our “expectations” of Him will be guiding our belief about “who” we will let Jesus be in our lives! There is nothing more that Jesus needs to “do” to prove He IS the Messiah so the problem is simply a matter of our “expectations of the Messiah and our unbelief” —Jesus is teaching “us” here that if we are “expecting” a knight in white armor  that we may actually miss the “real deal” — and the fault does not rest with God, the fault rests entirely on our “expectations of Jesus” — Jesus IS the Son of God - so, what are your “expectations” of Him??? 

SPIRITUAL TRUTH: THE MESSIAH IS WHO GOD HIMSELF DECLARES IS THE MESSIAH AND WHOM GOD ANOINTS WITH THE POWER OF GOD TO DO THE WORK OF THE MESSIAH AS GOD HAS PURPOSED THE MESSIAH TO DO — THE MESSIAH IS NOT THE MESSIAH BECAUSE HE MEETS THE WORLD’S EXPECTATIONS OF HIM BUT BECAUSE HE MEETS GOD’S EXPECTATIONS!!!