JANUARY 30 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#02 “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you …and if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?” (Matthew 5:46-47)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, the Eternal Unchanging God of my Salvation. Lord I praise You for Your Faithfulness and Unfailing Grace You extend to all who call upon Your Name, Jesus. Lord, I pray today the same prayer I prayed in 2004: “Jesus, praise Your Holy Precious Name for You are Worthy of our praise. All glory we give to Thee and to Thee alone. Lord may we do nothing in our lives that is not a praise to You and may all that we do bring Honor to Your Death on the Cross, that man may know that the Father God loved mankind enough that He would provide Salvation to a sinful world through the DEATH, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, who for our sakes suffered greatly for our sins. He was Innocent before the Father, yet as He bore our sins on the cross, He also had to suffer the rejection of a Holy Father who cannot look on sin — all this suffering of the Innocent so that the guilty world can live the Victorious Forgiven-life through the Victor Himself, Jesus Christ!” AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
JESUS used JQ#01 to remind us that it is not about what we can take from the world but what we give to the world that gives us worth by stating very plainly that we “are salt” and that we “are light” and we must stop and think about the Truth of God contained in “salt” and “light” from God’s Viewpoint in order to grasp the Lesson Jesus Teaches and why He would start His 33 JESUS Questions by using “salt” and “light” and to State a Truth of God about who we “are” in God’s Plan — “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…” (Matthew 5:13a & 5:14a) Jesus does not command us to become “salt” and “light” but Jesus makes His Divine Point by first stating that we “are” and then Jesus asks the Question JQ#01 “…but if salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?” (Matthew 5:13b) Jesus immediately gives us the Answer in the form of “Consequences” as He says, {about tasteless salt} “…it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matthew 5:13c) and {about light} “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket…” (Matthew 5:14, 15a). Jesus sums up the Truth of God using common logic but we must first focus on what is TRUE or we will miss the TRUTH of God. Jesus illustrates this by JQ#01 and lays out the “FORMAT for HIS TEACHING” — (1) We are to look for the OBVIOUS TRUTH that the Question will focus us on then (2) Jesus will give us the Answer if we will Listen. (3) Jesus uses God’s Law of Choice and Consequence to make His Divine Point. God’s Law of Choice and Consequence can be found throughout the Holy Bible and its importance is verified by the OBVIOUS TRUTH that it was applied to the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. To emphasize His Divine Point, God spoke everything but mankind into existence! However, after God had created everything else we read in Genesis that God made man with His own Hands and God used His own Breath to breathe life into man and then God again used His own Hands to remove a rib from Adam’s side which God used to make Eve, the woman which God presented to man to be a helpmate! God then “planted a garden” and placed the man into the Garden of Eden to “tend {work} and to keep it {treasure it}” (Genesis 2:7-15) and God established the Law of Choice and Consequence — “And the LORD God commanded the man saying, {TRUTH — GOD PROVIDES} ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; {The LAW} but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, {of CHOICE} for in the day you eat of it, {and CONSEQUENCE} you shall surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16-17) The LORD God established with the 1st Law of Choice and Consequence that the “penalty for disobeying God {sin} is death” but the reward for obeying God is “eternal life”. God gave us a “CHOICE” in the form of FREEWILL and therefore we are under obligation to look at God’s Holy Word for the TRUTH OF GOD to guide us in making “Choices” but we should keep in mind that the “Rewards” and “Penalties” have already been laid out before the foundations of the world and God applies them fairly and equally to all mankind! Therefore with that TRUTH of GOD in mind, let us apply that to JQ#01 — Truth: God made us and expects us in our “natural” state to be “salt and light”. “Law”: Salt and Light are used to add taste to those that use salt which must be consumed to get the salt flavor out of it and Light makes things visible to those who use the light to find their way. Rewards for a Good “Choice”: Using salt adds flavor to our lives and being in the light, we can see to find our way. Consequence (penalty) of a Bad “Choice”: without salt, life is bland and tasteless and without light we will stumble and fall and get off the path and lose our way in life. These “Truths” are common to man and when common logic is applied to each situation it will reveal these “Truths” — but once we see the Truth, then we are faced with a “Choice” and our responsibility to God is to use our God-given intellect to use His Word to make good “Choices”! If we stop and think, we can see the rewards and penalties but we must look through “Spiritual” eyes because our worldly eyes are tied to the “physical” world which contains the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16) — the worldly temptations that are common to man! JQ#01 teaches us about God, Jesus, ourselves, and about our attitude toward others, and keep in mind that this is JQ#01 and God thought it important enough to make it the first Question/Lesson! So it will behoove us to consider that “salt” and “light” are worthless unless they are used to help others — my observation is that “salt” is a natural occurrence and can be considered of being “physical” but “light” is still an unknown quantity and one of the mysteries of God and in my opinion falls into the “spiritual realm” because the first “Words” that God spoke came when God looked at the world and saw darkness and chaos, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.” Genesis 1:3. God’s Holy Word is given to give us understanding and God has demonstrated that He Will Provide for ALL our NEEDS — the TRUTH OF GOD is the WORD OF GOD and since we are made in God’s image, He declares our likeness to Him when He states His Truth that we “ARE SALT” and we “ARE LIGHT” !!! With the Lessons of JQ#01 fresh in our mind, let us then look at JQ#02: “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you …and if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?” (Matthew 5:46-47) and consider both the Lesson Truth of JQ#01 and this general truth statement about God (that is “TRUE” because of His Great Love for us), and it goes like this: “There is nothing that we can do to deserve the Love of God but the Good News is that God’s love is not dependent on who we are or what we do. God Loves us because He chooses within Himself to Love us and His Love is totally dependent on who God IS, therefore, there is nothing we can do to lose His Love!” This idea of God choosing to love us in spite of our sins because of who He IS could possibly be (in my opinion) the Root Cause of Grace itself and makes a really good place to start looking at JQ#02 — (Context: Matthew 5:18 - 6:24) and the Question(s) contained in Matthew 5:45,46, & 47. For JQ#02 we will look at the context of the Questions and also consider “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) and the fact that we cannot be separated from the love of God! Then we should also consider why Jesus concludes JQ#02 (4 questions asking the same thing, I think) with a this command: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). If you have as much trouble being “perfect” as I do then JQ#02 is a great Lesson from the Master Teacher to help us improve!!!
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