MARCH 27 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#11 “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7)

MARCH 27  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 come before You this morning with so much  “thanksgiving” in my heart that I fear my words will once again fall short of glorifying You, for my words are from a finite intellect trying to glorify the Infinite Knowledge, Mercy, and Grace of Jesus Christ!!!  Lord indeed Your Ways are higher than my ways and Your Thoughts higher than my thoughts but Lord look again into my heart and may the Holy Spirit speak my “heartfelt-thanksgiving” in words of praise worthy of the Honor due You. Lord Jesus, I pray again these words first prayed from my heart in 2004: “Lord, strengthen my resolve to make every day-to-day choice with the desire to live my life to glorify God!”    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus, used the context of this simple Question to make it of Divine Significance by the fact that Jesus asked this Question “to the multitudes” (Matthew 11:7a) just after declaring Himself to be the Messiah to the disciples of John the Baptist. The Question alerts us to where our “focus” should be as we try to answer His Teaching Question about our “spiritual expectations of God”. Jesus began His Teaching of the multitudes with this question: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7b). We know that it is a Teaching Question because Matthew states in verse 1 of Chapter 11 that Jesus had “finished commanding His twelve disciples” and that Jesus had “departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities” (Matthew 11:1) hence we can know that Jesus intends to “teach and to preach” — and through our study of the previous JESUS Questions we know that His Questions are all rhetorical for Jesus is God and therefore is ALL-KNOWING, so we can come quickly to an understanding that Jesus, being ALL-KNOWING, does not ask Questions to gain knowledge but rather, Jesus asks Questions to get us focused on a specific topic in order for us to see the Truth of God that Jesus Teaches with each Question/Lesson. With JQ#11 Jesus is asking us to stop and consider all our “expectations” and specifically our “spiritual expectations of the Messiah”. We can easily paraphrase JQ#11 from “what did you go out…to see?” to “what are your [spiritual] expectations?” and since Jesus had just detailed His list of “Divine” accomplishments proving Himself to be the “MESSIAH”, one should be able to make a direct correlation from the “works” Jesus performed in the name and from the Power of God with how the prophets and the Holy Scriptures had described the Messiah, plus John the Baptist declaring himself to be a “messenger of God” sent to declare to Israel that the Messiah is soon coming, and then John seeing Jesus declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) one would wonder how all Israel was not proclaiming loudly that Jesus IS the MESSIAH!?!?!  What Jesus Himself had accomplished in His ministry so far and had been publicly witnessed by the multitudes, ONLY the Messiah could accomplish what Jesus had been doing! There had never been anyone before Jesus that so completely fulfilled the requirements of the Messiah and there has been no one after Jesus that has fulfilled even one or two, let alone one man that fulfilled ALL of those Divine Attributes belonging Uniquely to the Messiah! Jesus by His Divine accomplishments proved He is the Messiah so why didn’t those that saw Jesus performing miracle after miracle including healing, casting out demons, and resurrecting the dead, and many, many, more signs believe that He was the Messiah without Him having to “lay it out” for them??? My pastor Steve McDonald uses the phrase: “Jesus lays the cookies on the bottom shelf so everyone can reach them” and Jesus had been performing Divine acts unique to Messiah so why couldn’t the multitudes who had seen, heard, and experienced Jesus in the flesh understand by their own observation that Jesus IS the Son of God and God’s Messiah? The same is true today because each generation has had God revealed to them, and today we have the Holy Bible that “lays the cookies on the bottom shelf” for us, so why don’t we reach out and listen to Jesus and give Him a serious personal answer to this serious personal Question Jesus asks each of us as individuals, “What are your spiritual expectations of Jesus?”  Why don’t you take a bite of the cookie being offered and understand Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”?