MARCH 26 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#11 “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7)

MARCH 26  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#11 “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer   

JESUS, Lord I give You and the Holy Spirit Praise for the wonderful lesson on “Spiritual Expectations about Easter” that You taught in our 3rd/4th 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 and 4th Graders both “how” and “why” they should “share” the Good News about the True Meaning of Easter! Lord, how my heart leaped as each one took their turn describing Easter as the Resurrection, all Praise, Glory, and Honor to the Holy Spirit for empowering them and to the Risen Lord for dying and defeating death that we may LIVE!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

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 in Mathew 11:7 is from a series of JESUS 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” which is the sermon topic 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”. John’s Message about the “Coming Messiah” was so powerful that it had gained the attention of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem because John was the first prophet speaking the Word of God in Israel since Malachi, the last prophet of God who had last spoken hundreds of years ago — God’s prophets had been silent now for about 400 years so John appears on the scene declaring “REPENT” and “the Messiah is Coming soon” and now everyone is “expectant” that the Messiah has come just as the prophecies of old 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 “His works” that He had been doing among the people of Israel that Jesus was indeed the “Messiah” that Israel 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 Jesus turned and asked this Question to the enlighten the 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 “spiritual expectations” of Him will be guiding our belief about “who” Jesus will 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 “spiritual expectations of the Messiah and our Belief/Unbelief” —Jesus is Teaching “us” here that if we are “expecting” a knight in white armor riding in on a horse leading a great army that we may actually miss the “real deal” of the True King riding in on a donkey— and the fault does not rest with God, the fault rests entirely on our “spiritual 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 HAD PLANNED AND PURPOSED THE MESSIAH TO DO — THE MESSIAH IS NOT THE MESSIAH BECAUSE HE MEETS THE WORLD’S EXPECTATIONS OF HIM BUT THE MESSIAH IS THE MESSIAH BECAUSE HE MEETS GOD’S EXPECTATIONS — JESUS AND ONLY JESUS HAS FULFILLED GOD’S EXPECTATIONS OF THE MESSIAH — AND THAT’S THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!!!