FEBRUARY 27 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#07 “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26)

FEBRUARY 27  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#07 “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, today You have revealed a glimpse of the “Divine Obvious” for us to ponder as we simply observe that we are in yet another day that has been provided by Your Grace and Faithfulness for if You were not Faithful to keep the stars in their place then we would not be experiencing another sunrise. You Lord control the entire universe and we can observe the “Divine Obvious” if we but open our eyes and see Your Glory being revealed by Your Creation, using our God-given “senses” we can see “YOUR FAITHFULNESS” being displayed daily in the Miracle of Life. Lord Jesus, I pray that I will never close my eyes to Your Truth but keep my eyes wide open and my heart softened to the myriad of ways You reveal Your Faithfulness to us on a daily basis. Lord as I contemplate another year of serving You, I pray that You would fill me daily with that desire to do those things with my life that truly serve and Honor You and Glorify the Father.  Lord I pray with my heart of hearts that I become one with You and the Father and that my life will be lived totally “in Christ alone”.  Forgive me of my many shortcomings and guide me in Your Truth.    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS has been Teaching with His Lessons so far how we should view ourselves from a kingdom of God perspective with what Matthew describes as “sayings” of Jesus, then Matthew documents that what Jesus had been Teaching with these “sayings [of Jesus], that the people we astonished”! (Matthew 7:28) Matthew begins the next series of Lessons of Jesus with “When [Jesus] had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him.” (Matthew 8:1) Remember that this series of Lessons started as Matthew had written about Jesus: “And seeing the multitudes, [Jesus] went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:” (Matthew 5:1-2)  —Jesus began His Teaching on the mountains with the Beatitudes and followed with the Lessons that “astonished” the people and now Jesus is coming down from the mountain and begins providing “Examples” of how to put action to our faith! Jesus came down from the mountain and began His Public Ministry of healing, first a leper, then the servant of a centurion who Jesus commended for having “great faith”, after that Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, and Matthew records that the multitudes that had observed Jesus doing these works of God that “they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself [the Messiah] took our infirmities and bore our sickness.’” (Matthew 8:2-17 from Isaiah 53) Since Jesus has introduced the term “faith” when He healed the centurion’s servant, and considering that the next JESUS Question is JQ#7 “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26),  we should pause and think about “faith” in general. How the Holy Spirit has led me to teach “faith” to my third graders in Sunday School is to first ask them how they themselves define “faith” and then to take their definitions and show them how phrases like “belief in God” and “trusting in God” points to the basic Truth of God about “FAITH IN GOD”. God points us the common sense fact that we must be careful where we direct our “faith” and who it is that we “trust”  — for “faith” is not the KEY, the KEY is “FAITH IN GOD”  and is best taught by answering the simple question “What do you believe about God and why do you trust Him?” However, we can have “Faith” in just about anything. We can believe in whatever we chose to believe so we must consider this elementary question about “Faith” — “What causes you to ‘believe’ and what causes you to ‘trust’?”  When we think about “faith” and “trust” we must admit that both can be applied to anything or anybody that we chose to have “faith in” or to “trust in”!  The degree to which we trust is a measure of our belief, for example each time you go to sit down in a chair is an expression of trust in the ability of the chair to hold your weight. Some of us look a little closer at the particular chair we are going to “trust” with our additional weight but over time our “faith” in chairs has been built upon exercising that faith in chairs by sitting in different chairs and grow our trust in chairs each time that chair hold us up.  Our “FAITH IN GOD”  can only be strengthened by exercising that “faith” in Him by trusting Him with various areas of our lives and letting Him prove Himself to us each time we put our “Faith in God” to the test thereby our Trust in God grows each time God proves Himself able to provide for our needs! Resurrection Sunday is one of those great times in our spiritual lives that we can build our “FAITH IN GOD” because of all the great things God proved to us when He raised Jesus from the tomb, gave His Son Jesus victory over death, and completed the Divine Plan for the Salvation of a lost world of sinners! God has done many things to show us that if we will study His Word that we will see time after time obvious basic “Divine Truths” about God that will develop in us great TRUST in God. As we contemplate our “FAITH IN GOD”, let us remember the last words Jesus spoke from the cross: “It is finished!”. (John 19:30) Jesus trusted God with His Eternal Life and allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross to be Sacrificed for our sins — and If Jesus had enough ““FAITH IN GOD” that He would Shed His Holy Blood and die on a cross for us, then we should have “Faith” in the One that has Provided for our Salvation!