JULY 13 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 13  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, (From a song given to me by the Holy Spirit in 2003) “Jesus, Precious Jesus, Thank You, You took my sins away, and I want to thank You for all that You’ve done, so this is the prayer that I pray — Please grant it Lord that I may grow strong, yet give more than I take. Teach me to lean on Jesus my King and guide me each step that I take. In all that I do let Your Love Shine through, that lost sheep might find the way and come back Home to this Peace I’ve known — this is the prayer I pray.”  Praise to God from whom ALL Blessing flow, forgive me of my daily sins, and create in me a clean heart, O God!       AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus always gave us a Living Example of the Lessons He was Teaching and each Lesson reveals a Truth of God so that we may know who God is by knowing His Truth. I have always asked the question: “Couldn’t there have been some other way for our sins to be forgiven other than God having to send His Son to Sacrifice Himself for our sins?” There has been one answer that the Holy Spirit gives me and it is in the form of a question as my heart and soul hears: “Why do you question God?” When I stop and “think” about it, I come to the conclusion that instead of questioning God that I should look to see what Truth of God is revealed in the things that He does! So instead of asking “Why would God sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for my sin” I make this observation and I see that (1) the creator God who can do all things without my help has made a Divine Personal Decision to help those that He certainly doesn’t need any help from ——— and (2) not only does God help others who cannot repay Him for His Divine Help, He used His Most Precious Possession to accomplish His Desire to do “Good” for others, (3) God had no motivation to make His Decision except His Own Pure Character of Mercy (4) besides proving Himself to be a Merciful God, He also reveals that He is a Loving God for we know that our sin is nothing but rebellion against God and even though God Knows all things and Knows that we are undeserving of Love, God pours out His Divine Compassion on us and proves He is a Gracious and Compassionate God and finally (5) The fact that God would send His Son to die a cruel death for our sin proves that God is an “Unchanging” and “Just” God !!! In the beginning God said that disobedience to Him must be punished by death and my worldly thoughts say that “if I am the rule-maker and I am in charge of enforcing those rules then I can change the rule if I want to” ——— but God proves He is a GOD that GOD NEVER CHANGES and the rules apply to everyone and will be enforced fairly and justly — FOREVER — PROVING GOD IS ETERNALLY UNCHANGING AND UNEQUIVOCALLY JUST! When we question God we are using the world’s standard of ever-changing priorities but when we observe God from the point of “Truth and Fairness” we see that God’s Moral Standard is the only True and Fair Standard by which all mankind should judge ourselves and others!  By using God’s Unchanging Moral Standard we have confidence that God will judge everyone equally by the same fair standard which NEVER CHANGES, and we know His Standards NEVER change because God Himself NEVER CHANGES. So the Truth of God is that sin MUST be punished and the Compassion of God ——— (“For God so loved the world”) is demonstrated by His Grace towards sinners (“that He gave His only begotten Son”) and by providing Himself a Sacrifice for our sin problem (“that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16) and God goes the extra mile in that not only will we “not perish” but God rewards our “belief in His Only Begotten Son” with “everlasting life”!  The fact that “sin” is a problem in the world is not what is being disputed by mankind, mankind just does not want to admit that “sin” is a problem that we are EACH personally responsible for! We refuse to admit that we cannot solve the sin-problem ourselves and that we must turn to God for the solution. This is God’s Plan of Salvation in a nutshell: God gave us Free Will but we used it poorly and chose to sin instead of following God and we ended up lost in our sin. Once lost in sin, we cannot see our way back to the TRUTH OF GOD and our selfish pride prevents us from asking God for directions. God however RESCUES us from our sin but in Honor of His Gift of Free Will to us, God will not “force” the RESCUE on us but waits for our call for “Help!” which comes when we REPENT of our sin and call out to God for His Mercy. When God hears our cry, He immediately “RESCUES” us, THIS TRUTH OF GOD RESCUING US  we call “SALVATION”. My question to those that read this passage is simply: “Why do you not accept God’s Help instead of questioning ‘why’ He is such a Good, Kind, Gracious, and Forgiving God?”

JULY 12 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 12  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, Precious is that Name, the Name above all names, all praise and honor go to the Name of Jesus. The Only Begotten of the Father, yeah the only One of all the children of God that was able to live a Perfect Life while in the flesh, and even to the point of death at the end of His earthly Life, Jesus maintained that Perfection even in dying such a cruel death on the Cross! Jesus took His death and turned it into our Victory! Jesus, You are Faithful to fulfill Your Promises to us and Your Word is Pure! O Holy Spirit, my heart is yielded and my soul longs for Your Touch, my mind yearns to be filled with Your Understanding and even the most inward parts of my being begs for Your Salvation and Sanctification. Teach me, guide me, and lift up my soul to the Father!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus always has a Purpose for every Question, and that single Purpose is to reveal the Father to us, so why is Jesus spending so much of His Effort in Teaching us about “sin”?  Jesus asked JQ#21 in Matthew 17:25 just after telling His disciples that “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” (Matthew 17:22) and immediately Jesus jumps to asking: “From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?” (Matthew 17:25) — or is this a “jump” going from talking about the resurrection (being raised the third day) to the kings of the earth extracting “taxes”? Jesus made a very interesting statement to Peter once Peter answered that the “kings of the earth … take customs or taxes” from “strangers” and not from their “sons” and Jesus declared “Then the sons are free.” (Matthew 17:26) After Jesus made the “sons are free” statement He performed the miracle with the “fish and taxes” which illustrated that God wants us to continue in our daily lives and to trust Him to provide for us. Then Jesus Teaches in Chapter 18 about “sin” by addressing our worldly desire for “greatness” as expressed by a comment from His own disciples. Jesus replies to His disciples with this statement when the disciples asked Him “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:1) ——— Jesus answers “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted…you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven…” (Matthew 18:2) Then for the remainder of Chapter 18 Jesus is Teaching about “Sin” !?!?!? These verses when viewed individually feel somewhat disjointed to me and the amount of verses dedicated to “sin” seems out of proportion, but then I read these passages as a whole and I see God’s Master Plan of Salvation in Matthew 17:20 - 18:35. When these passages are viewed as the Plan of Salvation it becomes evident that God is serious about resolving the sin problem!!! To illustrate the Magnitude of God’s Compassion for a lost world, Jesus spends His earthly ministry teaching “Repent … the kingdom of heaven is at hand…” (see Matthew 3:2 and Matthew 4:17) and He emphasizes that God has prepared a heaven for those that “repent” or are “converted” from their sin and that God has also prepared a “hell” for those that reject God. Time and time again Jesus has stated that we must personally make this decision that determines where we will spend our “eternity” after our “(very brief) lifetime on earth” which begins with our “physical” birth to an earthly mother and father. This “physical” lifetime will be terminated either by our “physical” death on earth or our “spiritual birth” into the “Spiritual kingdom of God” to which Jesus alluded to with His “the sons are free” statement in Matthew 17:26. So the Master Plan of Salvation is God sending His Only Begotten Son to the earth to become flesh so that Jesus can live a perfect life which will be the ONLY acceptable Substitutionary Sacrifice wholly acceptable to the Father and this “Acceptable Sacrifice” will be a “Once for All” Sacrifice for All Sin. Mankind is sinful and will be judged by a Just and Faithful God who at the beginning of His creation declared the “penalty of sin is death”. As a sinner, we must admit our sin and then “repent” of our sin and we will receive God’s Gift of “Grace” and “Forgiveness” for our sins because Jesus paid our debt to sin when He was “betrayed into the hands of men … [and killed]” God sealed His Promise by “Resurrecting Jesus” from the grave on the “third day”!!! Jesus has stated His Divine Purpose was to “save that which was lost [in sin]” (Matthew 18:11) and so our personal decision to “repent from sin” and “convert” to being sons of God will determine where we will spend our eternity ——— we will either spend our eternity with God or separated from Him and our eternity boils down to a simple question ——— “Do we believe God means what He says?”

JULY 11 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 11  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, You Lord have done all that could be done and there could be no greater expression of Love than the Gift that the Father gave to the world in the form of Self Sacrifice for the sake of others. Lord it will always be a Mystery why You became flesh and allowed Yourself to be tempted in the flesh in all ways that we are tempted in the world. Why would the King of kings and Lord of lords humble Himself and allow His creation to crucify Him? Lord, instead of questioning “Why” would God choose this path for mankind to enter into eternity and unbroken fellowship with the Father, let me Lord give You Thanks, Praise, and Glory for without You showing us the Way, we would remain lost in our sin. Give us this day our daily bread — for Yours is the kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory FOREVER!!!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus IS the Master Teacher and being God He has Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom. Jesus used “His Mastery of Words” to Teach Lessons-within-a-Lesson and in this section in Matthew chapters 17 and 18 Jesus has already used two common everyday words that everyone understands — “fish” and “taxes” — simple little words BUT with our limited finite insight we would never put together in the way Jesus puts them together to Teach us a Lesson-within-a-Lesson and reveal God Himself! Jesus actually performed a miracle with Peter and a fish to explain the “Provisions” of God and while in the process of Teaching us about God’s Provisions for us, Jesus Taught us that God is not limited in His Power in any way and GOD IS the SUPREME POWER in the universe, and also that God has chosen to use that Supreme Power to take care of our daily needs by controlling circumstances in our daily lives to produce a miracle — these two words are “fish” and “taxes” and in only 4 verses (Matthew 17:24-27) Jesus reveals some amazing characteristics of God. If we look at the behavior of God in this passage and in reading the following passages in Chapter 18 we can learn Lesson after Lesson and could spend days just reading these passages and contemplating God and wonder “why” God would go through all the trouble to perform miracles in the first place, let alone understanding “how” God is able to perform miracles at all! Once you start thinking about the “Powers” of God you begin to wonder “Why” God cares about us at all, especially when He spends so much time Teaching us that we are sinners? The very definition of “sin” is “disobeying God” — so why would the Father God send His Only Begotten Son down to earth from heaven (where Jesus is a Third-Part of the Trinity of God) to give up His Divinity and Unlimited Power in heaven to be born flesh (John 1:14) and blood on the earth and dwell among a world that is so disobedient to God? Jesus spent His earthly life living a simple life, He did not hold any office of distinction, He did not have any earthly possessions, and He dedicated Himself to Teaching sinners how to solve their sin problem and the earthly life of Jesus was terminated by the Greatest Lesson ever Taught about God, “For [the Father] made [the Son] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in [Jesus].” (2 Corinthians 5:21) So why does Jesus spend so much time Teaching us that we are sinners — the answer is because His Mission was to teach us the “problem of our sin” and then present us with the “solution to the problem  of our sin”— the successful resolution of our sin problem on earth will be rewarded with eternal fellowship with God in heaven, completely free from sin but if the problem of sin is not resolved in our lives, then the consequence of our sin will be to spend an eternity in “hell fire” where we will be forever separated from God who sent His Son to save us from that hell where we will always know that our eternal agony is because we chose to sin against God ——— if we reject God then by our own choice we will live eternally in a burning hell knowing it was our sin that separated us from God and it is that knowledge of our sin that is the fuel that causes the fires of hell to burn so hot!!! We cannot explain why “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1)  in the first place or why God allowed “sin” to enter into His Perfect Creation and certainly we can’t explain why God would send His Only Begotten Son to Sacrifice Himself on a cruel cross to pay the penalty for OUR SIN — but the real question is: “Now that you know that “Sin IS the Problem” and that “Jesus IS the Solution” what are you going to do about it, will you continue disobeying God and die in your sin and spend eternity separated from God or will you obey God and “Listen to Jesus” and accept the Gift of Eternal Life of Fellowship with God?”

JULY 10 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 10  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 I turn each morning to Your Word and look to the rising sun as Your Promise to never leave us nor forsake us. Lord Jesus, my prayer today is that I can share this “Peace” in knowing You with others that You will place in my path today and make me mindful that whatever circumstance I find myself in that I will have Your Peace with me always but if I don’t share Your Peace with those that don’t know You, then that becomes a lose-lose-lose situation, they lose because they don’t have You, they lose because without You they can’t have Your Peace, and I lose for I lost an opportunity to grow closer to You by sharing You and Your Peace with the world that is hurting so much because the world has turned from God. Forgive me when I fail to share the sweet fragrance of Your Love and Peace in my life with others as You have commanded.    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus does not Teach us the same Lesson over and over just so that He can hear Himself talk. Jesus who is both Infinite and Divine cannot possibly need to beat our brow for His sake, so when He attacks a problem again and again we must take note and make every effort to learn what He is Teaching. First we must consider the obvious and ask ourselves “Why would a Deity with Infinite Knowledge forfeit His Deity to become flesh and suffer and die at the hands of sinners?” This is a Mystery of God that can only be answered by God Himself but even if we never get the answer in our lifetime we should not be so foolish as to conclude that because God does not “explain Himself” in terms our limited intellect can comprehend, that God Himself has no relevance in our life! God has revealed Himself as He wants us to know Him from our earthly viewpoint so that we can come to a “spiritual understanding” of God that will open the door to our “eternal” future. I do not have to know how gravity works or be able to explain all the physics associated with gravity to know that gravity exists. Today’s world tells us that God does not exist and that is supposed to be the “Truth” because they have been given a degree in some scientific discipline by some university that has a very high tuition? Both God and gravity defies scientific explanation but we accept gravity because we have felt it working in our daily lives. We say that gravity was “discovered” by Sir Isaac Newton when an apple fell on his head but fail to see the Truth that gravity existed BEFORE it was “discovered” (first, if something does not exist, it cannot be discovered, and second, if gravity didn’t exist before it was “discovered” then what made the apple fall in the first place?) and secondly, even though it was “discovered” it has never been fully explained, but even though science cannot explain gravity, our lives are still impacted by gravity and we simply could not exist without it. We know gravity is “real” because we can see the physical results of gravity such as a falling apple or something so simple as a pencil laying quietly on a table — take away gravity and that pencil and the table will be floating around in the absence of gravity and that is a picture of our world without God holding us “spiritually” in place, we are just floating aimlessly around in space and we are at the mercy of others and we’ll go in the direction of the latest “push” from the powers that are telling us God doesn’t exist and is not relevant in our lives. God is real and can be proven very simply, God can be felt just as real as an apple that falls from the tree but we have to have ourselves in the apples path to feel it and to feel God we must place ourself in His Path. Simply look for Him and His Spirit will touch your heart. Just like our physical body is aware of the presence of gravity, the “spiritual” part of our being will know when it is in the Presence of God. God is an unexplained Spirit and even though it can not be comprehended by our limited physical observations, the Spirit of God is to our soul what gravity is to our body, the Spirit of God keeps us grounded in eternity just like gravity keeps our bodies grounded to this earth on which we temporarily reside.  The Truth of God is that both gravity and God work on us on a personal basis without the explanation of the scientific community and are governed not by man’s laws but by God Himself. To entertain the possibility that God does not exist is to allow others to control the “spiritual gravity” in your life and I personally don’t want those that seek personal power over others to control what they can’t explain, and that goes for both gravity, which by the way it is imperative that I keep in touch with gravity on a personal basis without having to wait on some lawyer or politician telling me how to use my personal gravity and the same is true for my “spiritual gravity” which I do not want to have to wait on some lawyer or politician telling me how to use God who they can’t explain either! God is revealed by gravity and we must make our own “discovery” and admit that if we can explain God or not, GOD EXISTS ——— how else do we explain the things that no scientist will ever be able to explain such as the universe around us and the miracle of life itself that we have observed which can only be explained by the True Existence of a Supreme Power ———  God’s UNEXPLAINABLE Understanding and Power define God Himself !!! There is only One True Eternal Creator God and all else is simply His creation ——— God told Moses “I AM WHO I AM” and that is all the explanation that we need to understand both gravity and God ——— God has declared it, therefore it is, “deal with it”!!!

JULY 09 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 09  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, Your Peace is freely offered yet we struggle to release ourselves from the chains of our past sins which You have already won the victory over?!?!? Lord Teach me as only You can that when You died on the cross that it was for ALL sin, EVERY sin of the past, EVERY sin in progress today, and EVERY single sin that we WILL COMMIT in our future!!! Lord let me hear Your words as You gave Your last drop of Precious Blood for the atonement of my sins — “It is finished!” — Yes !!! The Work of God has been accomplished, our sins ARE FORGIVEN !!! Lord do not let me go on trying to drag my sin around with me, I am powerless against it and it is nothing more than dead weight of guilt and shame that drags me down, Lord I lay my sin at Your feet and pray for the spiritual strength of weakness to not pick it up again!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus Teaches us a Lesson and we should pay close attention but if Jesus Teaches the same Lesson more than twice it is VERY important that we “think” about it long enough and from the right “spiritual” viewpoint to see the Truth of God that God Himself has declared important enough that He would send His Only Begotten Son to Teach us! It should impress us that God would allow His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON to be born of flesh and suffer innocently through all the temptations that the creation must suffer in this world that was once a paradise but through our own iniquities the world has become a cesspool of sin. Jesus makes it clear that the world is in deep trouble with God and there is an upcoming judgment because of sin — and this is not the first time Jesus has Taught this Lesson! In this section Jesus gives us several warnings, first Jesus tells us that we must change our direction of our convictions of how we live our daily lives when He states: “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) Jesus continues stressing the importance of us entering the kingdom of heaven through Him when He says plainly: “Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me” and then Jesus tacks on a warning, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) So there Jesus says that the “unconverted sinner” will be judged guilty!!! We should note that Jesus Teaches we should “convert” from being men seeking personal “greatness” to being humble like innocent children and if we “think” about that for a minute we will see that when we are “innocent” that we do not seek “greatness” and the problem with seeking “worldly” greatness is that the “road to worldly success” leads down the path of destruction that is paved with sin and that pathway is broad for our sins are many. Jesus Teaches this same Lesson in the next verse as He warns more severely: “Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!” (Matthew 18:7) No one can read this section of scripture and escape the fact that our sins are an “offense” to God and that there is going to be severe penalties to pay for our transgressions against God for Jesus continues to warn us by listing the consequences for our sinful actions. Jesus already listed one consequence (1) “drown in the depth of the sea” and now Jesus throws in several more “visuals” for us to imagine in the form of punishment — (2) “if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you” (Matthew 18:8) — (3) “if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you” (Matthew 18:9) Then to make sure we understand that it is sin that causes us to lose our direction Jesus makes a clear definitive statement of why He is on earth Teaching us about sin when He says: “For the Son of Man has come to save that which is lost.” (Matthew 18:11) This section should Teach us that we should “repent” of our sin (which Jesus used the term “convert”) to avoid the penalty of sin that will be judged by God Himself and as always Jesus tells us how to resolve our sin problem and paints a “positive visual” of the judgement when He says that “if” we “convert” we will “see the kingdom of heaven” and twice Jesus used the term “enter into life” then Jesus promises that if we “become as children” we will have “angels” assigned to guard us from sin and that the “Father” in heaven will always look over His “converted” children — and the picture I got was that if I become as a little child that I will have a personal audience with [our] “Father who is in heaven” and be rewarded with eternal life rather than staying lost in my sin and end up with a “millstone hung around my neck” and “drowning in the depth of the sea”. Which vision fits your spiritual eye, being cast into hell fire or entering into life being protected and provided for by our Father in heaven?

JULY 08 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 08  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, as we go through our daily routines let us not miss the INFINITE, ETERNAL, UNCHANGING Truth of God that You have Promised (1) to Personally lead us in “paths of righteousness” as You Provide for our “daily bread” and (2) TEACH US that we should treat others as You treat us, (3) that we forgive others as You forgive us, and (4) that we should understand that our lives should reflect You and the Father in everything that we do ——— thereby we will be “dwelling in the house of the Lord forever”!   Lord Jesus, instead of praying for You to forgive me today, I pray instead that You will give me the “spiritual discernment” to forgive others and “settle accounts” with all that have transgressed against me and I them so that I shall have the confidence that all my transgressions against You will be forgiven and I will learn that to be “one with the Father” that I must “Live and Forgive” for the Father has taught us “Love and Compassion for others”  through the Son!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus always Teaches us a Truth of God and then Jesus “tests our understanding” of the Lesson just Taught so that we are sure to get the Truth of God that Jesus intends for us from that Lesson. Jesus knows that we have a tendency to “hear” what the world has conditioned us to “hear” and we often miss the Truth of God that Jesus Speaks to us in His Lessons. Here in JQ#21 Jesus started this Lesson on how to live our daily lives by asking Peter, “What do you think, Simon?” (Matthew 17:25) and then Jesus Taught about the Father’s Provision of our daily needs while at the same time Jesus showed us that the Father is Omniscient (all knowing). Jesus then Taught about building our “Faith in God” by correcting an error the disciples made when they assumed “greatness” was a “reward” to be earned because of “good works” but Jesus showed them an innocent child and said that being “humble” and innocent as a child was the pre-requisite for “greatness in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4). Jesus continued His “Faith-building” Lesson by Teaching that we are all sinners and that to return to our childhood innocence that we should identify the source of our “offenses” to God and “cast it from us” (Matthew 18:7) — it is interesting to note that the only things that have been “cast out” by Jesus so far have been personal demons as this section started with Jesus casting out a demon from a possessed boy then Jesus declared that the disciples inability to “cast out” the boy’s demon was because they were not motivated to do God’s work His Way ! Jesus immediately told the disciples to work on their “prayers and fasting” which was to be the foundation on which they were to build their Faith in God. Jesus now continues demonstrating how the Father expects us to live and to grow in our Faith by asking another “thinking” Question: “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?” (Matthew 18:12) Note that this Question starts with Jesus advising us to use our “God-given intellect” and make a decision on what we observe about our daily lives and it is not just a coincidence that Jesus states His Mission is that He has “come to save that which was lost” (Matthew 18:11) and then uses “lost sheep” to illustrated that a “Good Shepherd” will “seek the one that is straying” and “rejoices” when the lost sheep is found. (Matthew 18:12-13) Jesus then makes it clear that the Father has sent the Son to be the “Good Shepherd” and to seek the “lost sheep” and bring them back to the “Father’s Kingdom” as Jesus declares “why” that “lost sheep” are important to God when Jesus tells His disciples: “Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18:14) Jesus continues to insist that to build our “Faith in God” that we must “think about God” in our daily lives and how if we look at our world from a “Divine Spiritual Perspective” that we will see the Hand of God working in our daily lives to draw us back to an age of innocence and that by humbling ourselves before God we will be able to see God and in doing so we will want to become more like God in the way that we treat others. I would challenge you to “think” about what you “thought” about “fish, taxes, and lost sheep” before you were under the Teaching of the Holy Spirit?!? Then compare your “before” with your “after” and then ask yourself, “Do I now look at others in the same “Way” that God looks at me?”  ———  Think about it…

JULY 07 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 07  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, how did mankind make it before You came and sacrificed Yourself for our sins? We all have sinned and fallen short of Your Glory and yet there is always the “HOPE” that Your Sacrifice brings into our world. There is no night so dark that Your Light cannot shine through that darkness nor is there a pit so deep that Your Love cannot reach down and pull us up. Lord Jesus we have the Blessed Assurance that not only are you here for us in our time of need but that You have Promised to NEVER leave us nor forsake us, and that Promise is Eternal!!! Lord, Savior, Redeemer, take my life and make it wholly Thine and lead me in Your Paths of Righteousness for Your Name’s Sake.           AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus always Teaches in steps that lead us closer to God, but just like steps which must be taken one at a time, we should take care to obtain our “footing” on the new step and stand firm in our faith before trying to attain the next, lest we lose our “footing” and instead of drawing closer to God we stumble and fall away from God as we try to keep our own balance instead of relying on the Truth of God to keep our equilibrium on our Journey to find God Himself. It always helps my understanding of what Jesus is trying to Teach me if I stop and look at where Jesus had my attention focused in the previous Lesson and use that understanding to see the direction that the new Lesson is taking me. Jesus ended His last lesson by declaring in this order: (1) The disciples could not cast a demon out of a man’s son (2) Jesus pointed out their inability to “heal” the boy was linked to the fact that they were “faithless and perverse” because they were depending on their ability and not the Power of God. (3) “And Jesus rebuked the demon [in the boy], and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.” (Matthew 17:18) (4) Jesus then turned to His disciples and explained it was their “unbelief” that caused their weakness and they needed to work on their “faith’” [in God’s Power to work through us] (5) Jesus then referred to Himself as the “Son of Man” and reminded them that as part of His Mission on earth that He was to “be betrayed into the hands of men” (Matthew 17:22) and (6) He would be killed but that “the third day [Jesus would be] raised up” (Matthew 17:23) (7) Jesus performed the miracle of paying the temple tax with a fish Peter caught and demonstrated that God knows our needs without us asking (see also Matthew 6:8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him”) (8) Then Jesus ties the Lesson of working on our faith with Him casting the demon out of the boy with His Lesson on “Who’s the greatest…” by calling a child to Himself and saying that “whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest…” and to me that tied together JQ#20 lesson where Jesus cast the demon out of the boy and now here in JQ#21 Jesus is saying that if we will allow Him to cast out our demons we will become as innocent children in the kingdom of heaven and will be among the “greatest”. (Matthew 18:1-6) Step upon step we learn of God’s Truth just by taking those steps under the Guiding Power of the Teachings of Jesus! Jesus then continues the theme of us daily repenting of our sins caused by our worldly desires as He then reminds us that “offenses [to God by our worldly sins] must come” (Matthew 18:7) but that if we will repent and turn to God that we will “enter into life” — but if we don’t remove the source of sin and repent then we will “be cast into the everlasting fire” (Matthew 18:8) Jesus then continues His Lesson and says a second time that we should do whatever it takes to get rid of our sin for “it is better for you to enter into life” than to “be cast into hell fire”!!! (Matthew 18:9) Jesus then reminds us that we must become as innocent children and announces that when we are “converted and become as little children” that “in heaven [that the angels of God’s children] always see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10) Jesus then confirms His Mission and our path to heaven and the Father when He clearly states: “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” (Matthew 18:11) Step by step Jesus has Taught us that we are lost in our sin and that we must repent of those sins for they are an offense to God and if we repent then Jesus will cast out our worldly demons and we will be converted to children of God and will have angels in heaven watching over us and we will have direct access to our Father in heaven! Can you “think” [there’s that command again] of a better future than to return to your childlike innocence and have a “Loving Father” take care of your every need?