JULY 03 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#21 “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)

JULY 03  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  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 Prayer    

Jesus, we give You all the Praise for You are the One that is Worthy of All Praise. Lord Jesus, the more I study Your Word, the more I realize what a tremendous Sacrifice that You made and when I consider that the world has always turned from Your Sufficient Grace to the disappointments of the world, it really is amazing that You would become our Salvation at such Great Expense!?!  Lord, I shudder to think of the many times that I have rejected Your Truth and chased after the pleasures of this world and Lord, the scary part is that occasionally I will let my physical desires dust off old memories of my worldly life and for a moment I forget the despair that my disobedient spirit caused in my old life and I turn from Your “Way” back into the shadows of this world, but then Your Grace shines the Light of Truth on my iniquity and I can see and appreciate what Great Love You have demonstrated towards all sinners and I return to the well lit path of the “TRUTH of GOD” and the “joy of my salvation” and once again raise my voice in Praise to the One that Sacrificed so much to set me free from sin.    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus addressed not only the Truth of God that we are “equipped” by God with the necessary tools to “answer” all the questions life presents to us but He also revealed in greater detail the difference between living a temporary life in the “physical” world with our flesh and preparing our souls for our “eternal spiritual” life in the “spiritual” world — Jesus has drawn us a clear picture so far that illuminates in our darkened mind that the “Spiritual World” is “Eternal” and that all “souls” will spend their “Eternity” either in the Presence of God in Heaven or those “souls” that choose to reject God will spend their “Eternity” separated from God in Hell. With JQ#21 Jesus is Teaching us that if we will use our God-given intellect to make good choices with our Free Will that we will be able to “reason” that the “world” offers us nothing “eternal” and the “eternal” offers us nothing “worldly”. Jesus points out to Peter with JQ#21 that if Peter will stop and “think” that Peter will see this distinction being played out in our daily lives as Jesus asks Peter “From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?” (Matthew 17:25) Peter gave the correct answer when he said “from strangers” (Matthew 17:26) At this point we should stop and think about “taxes” and the fact that “taxes” are part of this “physical” life but we should also understand that Jesus is pointing out that if we follow Him that just by living our daily lives and looking at everything from a “spiritual” perspective that we will see God’s Provisions for us to be able to make our way through this “physical” world without compromising our “souls” — Jesus instructed Peter to pay the “temple tax” and fulfill his “physical/worldly” obligation but Jesus also instructed Peter to trust that God will provide his daily needs through his daily life which was fishing. We have a valuable Lesson to learn from “fish” and “taxes” if we look at this “miracle” from God’s Perspective! We can go about our daily lives and realize that God knows our needs before we ask but we must “trust” Him and do those things that He instructs us to do — Jesus used the “fish” because Peter knew about fishing, but God is able to provide our needs using the things we are familiar with but we have never looked at them from the perspective that God has placed us in that position so that when we open our “spiritual” eyes and “Trust” Him with our “Spiritual” hearts that He will be able to show us His Glory which is Always Surrounding our Daily Lives but we just don’t stop and “Think” about what we see from God’s Perspective! Who would have ever thought that paying “taxes” could be a way to Glorify God?