JULY 13 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#21-17 >>> Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus <<< JQ#21 “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)

LIVING FOR JESUS --- Daily Devotional

JULY 13  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#21-17  >>> Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus <<< JQ#21  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)

Daily Prayer to JESUS    

Jesus, (From a song given to me by the Holy Spirit in 2003) “Jesus, Precious Jesus, Thank You, You took my sins away, and I want to thank You for all that You’ve done, so this is the prayer that I pray — Please grant it Lord that I may grow strong, yet give more than I take. Teach me to lean on Jesus my King and guide me each step that I take. In all that I do let Your Love Shine through, that lost sheep might find the way and come back Home to this Peace I’ve known — this is the prayer I pray.”  Praise to God from whom ALL Blessing flow, forgive me of my daily sins, and create in me a clean heart, O God!       AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JULY 13  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#21-17  >>> Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus <<< JQ#21  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)    Jesus always gave us a Living Example of the Lessons He was Teaching and each Lesson reveals a Truth of God so that we may know who God is by knowing His Truth. I have always asked the question: “Couldn’t there have been some other way for our sins to be forgiven other than God having to send His Son to Sacrifice Himself for our sins?” There has been one answer that the Holy Spirit gives me and it is in the form of a question as my heart and soul hears: “Why do you question God?” When I stop and “think” about it, I come to the conclusion that instead of questioning God that I should look to see what Truth of God is revealed in the things that He does! So instead of asking “Why would God sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for my sin” I make this observation and I see that (1) the creator God who can do all things without my help has made a Divine Personal Decision to help those that He certainly doesn’t need any help from ——— and (2) not only does God help others who cannot repay Him for His Divine Help, He used His Most Precious Possession to accomplish His Desire to do “Good” for others, (3) God had no motivation to make His Decision except His Own Pure Character of Mercy (4) besides proving Himself to be a Merciful God, He also reveals that He is a Loving God for we know that our sin is nothing but rebellion against God and even though God Knows all things and Knows that we are undeserving of Love, God pours out His Divine Compassion on us and proves He is a Gracious and Compassionate God and finally (5) The fact that God would send His Son to die a cruel death for our sin proves that God is an “Unchanging” and “Just” God !!! In the beginning God said that disobedience to Him must be punished by death and my worldly thoughts say that “if I am the rule-maker and I am in charge of enforcing those rules then I can change the rule if I want to” ——— but God proves He is a God that NEVER changes and the rules apply to everyone and will be enforced fairly and justly — forever! When we question God we are using the world’s standard of ever-changing priorities but when we observe God from the point of “Truth and Fairness” we see that God’s Moral Standard is the only True and Fair Standard by which all mankind should judge ourselves and others!  By using God’s Unchanging Moral Standard we have confidence that God will judge everyone equally by the same fair standard which NEVER CHANGES, and we know His Standards NEVER change because God Himself NEVER CHANGES. So the Truth of God is that sin MUST be punished and the Compassion of God ——— (For God so loved the world) is demonstrated by His Grace towards sinners (that He gave His only begotten Son) and by providing Himself a Sacrifice for our sin problem (that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16) and God goes the extra mile in that not only will we “not perish” but God rewards our “belief in His Only Begotten Son” with “everlasting life”!  The fact that “sin” is a problem in the world is not what is being disputed by mankind, mankind just does not want to admit that “sin” is a problem that we are personally responsible for! We refuse to admit that we cannot solve the sin-problem ourselves and that we must turn to God for the solution. This is God’s Plan of Salvation in a nutshell: God gave us Free Will but we used it poorly and chose to sin instead of following God and we ended up lost in our sin. Once lost in sin, we cannot see our way back to the TRUTH OF GOD and our selfish pride prevents us from asking God for directions. God however RESCUES us from our sin but in Honor of His Gift of Free Will to us, God will not “force” the RESCUE on us but waits for our call for “Help!” which comes when we REPENT of our sin and call out to God for His Mercy. When God hears our cry, He immediately “RESCUES” us which we call “SALVATION”. My question to those that read this passage is simply: “Why do you not accept God’s Help instead of questioning ‘why’ He is such a Good, Kind, Gracious, and Forgiving God?”