FEBRUARY 11 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#03 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life…Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25)

FEBRUARY 11  THE JESUS QUESTIONS    JQ#03  “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life…Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Praise You for the Eternal Loving God You are! Lord help us to see how very short a time we have on earth and keep us from wasting these precious few opportunities to draw close to the Creator and author of Forever! It is hard to grasp the concept of eternity because we are so bound by “time” and cannot imagine life without time, but time itself is bounded by a “beginning” which in turn shall have its “ending”. We think in terms of birth and death as markers in our earthly existence but help us O Lord to see ourselves in terms of Life Eternal which never ends! Lord, there is so much more to life and living than death and the grave, teach us about your Unending Love and Abundant Life Eternal.     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS went through great lengths to Teach us Lessons about paying attention to life and we should observe not only the Divine Effort invested in our Spiritual Education but we should also pay close attention to the subjects that He is Teaching. All Lessons that Jesus is Teaching us starts out by with a Question about our “physical” perception of the world and then Christ guides by His Lesson to achieve a “spiritual” perception of our life eternal. Far to many of us, and I certainly count myself as the leading contender for the prize of being a slave to my earthly viewpoint, cannot make the transition from the “physical” to the “spiritual” without a special push from the Master and that “push” is in the form of engaging our mental capacities by asking Questions about our physical viewpoint. In this section of Matthew 6:24-33 where Jesus is Teaching us about “worry”, we should note the obvious that ““worry” is a “spiritual” entity and “food” and “clothing” are physical entities. Jesus weaves these two viewpoints (spiritual and physical) together in a special Question in Matthew 6:25b that Teaches us the deeper Truth of God that we view our lives simply as the physical entities we have been programmed by our society to pay attention to like “food” and “clothing” but from a spiritual viewpoint “life IS more than food” and the “body IS more than clothing” — but the only way we can get to that reality is that we have to see our “life” and “body” from a “spiritual” viewpoint!  As long as we stay enslaved to the “physical” world we are bound by “death” but when we transition into our “Spiritual Eternal Future”, which from time to time is afforded the believer, we will see that in the “spiritual” world that there is “more” to life than the “physical” and this “more abundant Spiritual life” Taught by Jesus is not limited by “time” or threatened by “death”. Once we behold the “spiritual” realm we shift from our “physical” body bounded by time into our “spiritual soul” which exists in the “eternal life” given as an expression of God’s Love in the form of an “Eternal Spiritual Gift”: “For God so loved the world that He gave” … and when we accept God’s Gift of “…His only begotten Son…” by exercising our spiritual muscle then “…whosoever believes (belief is totally spiritual) in [JESUS] shall not perish (perish is totally 100% physical) but have eternal (eternity is 100% spiritual) life.” (John 3:16) So it is through “belief” that is “spiritual” which frees us from the “physical” — Jesus is Teaching us how to be free from our physical bonds but we must look at our life through the “spiritual lens” Jesus is pointing us to — “Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36) When reading this passage in Matthew on “worry” it helps to develop your answer by reading John 8:30-36 and John 3:3-6 and you will see Jesus is always Teaching “freedom from the physical” world and the “spiritual” path always leads through the “Spiritual Door” that is JESUS and He is Leading Believers into the “[Spiritual] kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33)!!!  Indeed, “…Is not [spiritual] life more than [physical] food and the [spiritual] body more than [physical] clothing?” (Matthew 6:25).  Jesus was always Teaching everyone who would listen that this physical world is temporary, “But [Jesus] said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.” (John 4:32) and that He was sent from heaven by God to show the way to God’s Spiritual Kingdom; and Jesus demonstrated by His Lifestyle that He was willing to do whatever it takes!!! “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin [though Jesus] knew no sin, so that in [Jesus] we might become the [spiritual] righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Revelation states clearly that those that believe in Jesus will be given “robes of righteousness” and Jesus Himself proclaimed “I AM the bread of life (manna from heaven) and he who believes in Me shall never hunger and he who believes in Me shall never thirst!” (John 6:35)  “Never” equates to “Spiritual Eternity” and “hunger” and “thirst” are “physical” entities that enslave the “physical body” with chains of “death and time” — and only by belief in Jesus can we transition from “physical death” to “spiritual life” — as Jesus Taught Nicodemus, “…Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6)