JULY 24 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#22 “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” (Matthew 20:15)

JULY 24  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#22  “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” (Matthew 20:15)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer   

JESUS, I have failed You in so many ways but Lord, I turn to You and to You alone for Forgiveness of my weakness of mind and my desire to satisfy my selfish desires. I know that “wanting” anything but Your purpose in my life is wrong. How can I pray for the Holy Spirit to fill me when I hold a memory of my old sin-ways locked deep in a special treasure box? There is nothing I think or do that God cannot see and yet I think I can hold back a part of my old sinful self and hide it from God?  NO! I yield it ALL to God, and pray not my will but THY Will be done in my life. I can make no decisions for myself any longer that is outside the Will of God, I can only work to achieve His purpose with whatever condition I find myself in.    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus is always directing His Questions to a specific detail of God’s Truth such as JQ#21 drew our attention to the problem of sin which drew our attention to the great extent that God Himself has gone to in order to resolve our sin issue and now in JQ#22 Jesus is using a parable to summarize another problem that we encounter in living our daily lives - that problem being that if we are not fully aware of the issue then we will be unwillingly obeying the “doctrines of men” instead of the “commandments of God”! For example, Jesus begins this section with another encounter with the Pharisees who were the religious legalists of His time on earth and specifically the subject of divorce. Jesus rebutted the arguments the Pharisees were making by going back to God’s original intent for marriage by stating the Genesis account of the original creation: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Jesus continued from the original account in the Holy Scriptures with the original intent of God regarding marriage as He referred to this passage: “…But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:20-24) By going back and referring to the account of the original creation of man by God from the same Holy Scriptures the Pharisees were trying to make their argument from and reminding the Pharisees how God Himself instituted the first marriage between the first man and the first woman, the Pharisees could not argue against the Truth of God and  God’s own actions and thereby Jesus completely nullified any argument the Pharisees tried to make about Moses allowing the Israelites to divorce “legally”. It is most important to note that the Pharisees were trying to use the argument that because a prophet of God from a previous generation had said divorce was “legal” so then it should be “legal” for this generation because of “legal precedence” established by Moses. “Legal precedence” is the main legalist argument of our present generation. However, Jesus reminded them of the Truth of God that even the prophets of God, even one with the stature of Moses, is not above the Law of God, for Moses, even though he had been chosen by God to lead Israel to the “Promised Land”, Moses himself was not allowed into the “Promised Land” because Moses had disobeyed God’s instruction to “speak to the rock” (Numbers 20:8) and thereby Jesus had nullified the Pharisees argument that it was “legal” to divorce their wives because Moses, being the representative of God, had said divorce was “legal”, and Jesus by pointing out that God, not Moses, is the final “Judge” and this lesson proved the Truth of God that only those things that are “legal” in God’s Judgment is the only basis for establishing a Moral Standard and declaring that which is truly “legal”. Jesus summed up this important TRUTH OF GOD as Jesus shut down the Pharisees argument that Moses said it was “OK” to divorce when Jesus concluded with this statement: “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:6b) Jesus continues this Lesson on the problem of “following the doctrines of men” verses “obeying the commandments of God” by using “children” to show the TRUTH OF GOD !  Jesus confirmed this TRUTH OF GOD when the disciples were arguing about “who is the greatest in heaven” and Jesus set a young child in their midst and said that they “must become as little children to even enter the kingdom of heaven” and here again the disciples were making a human mistake of trying to interpret what they mistakenly thought that God would do by rebuking those that were bringing their little children to Jesus for healing. However, Jesus once again demonstrated that what they “thought” was the “proper” behavior for children was not what God intended, “Jesus said, Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14) Don’t you think if the disciples that were 24/7 listening to Jesus could be wrong about living their daily lives and the way they treated others that we who only occasionally listen to God could also be mistaken about how we interact with those in our daily world? If the disciples of Jesus had to be reminded that they must not live according to what they supposed they knew what God had intended but live their daily lives and interact with each other by studying and knowing what God has already demonstrated and declared Himself!!! Don’t you think we would be wise to re-evaluate our “traditions” and to weed out those things that we do that are the “doctrine of men” and make sure that we are “following the commands of God” in our daily lives?!?!?