Layman's Pulpit

JUNE 23  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#20  “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, You Lord are to be praised and You are Worthy of the praise that is now coming from the lips of men and You are Worthy of the Glory and Honor that every tongue will profess belongs to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for the Father has declared that every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, and I praise You Jesus for completing God’s Plan of Salvation by becoming flesh, dwelling among us, living a sinless life for our sakes, and then becoming the very Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the earth, the Only Holy and Acceptable Sacrifice to pay in full the penalty of death and blood for the sin of all mankind. Lord Jesus, my prayer is for this sinner to decrease and let the Savior increase in every aspect of my daily life as I move towards my eternal destination  in and with the Power of the Holy Spirit.     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus started JQ#19 announcing to His disciples that He would “suffer and die” in Jerusalem and that the ones responsible would be “the elders and chief priests and scribes” (Matthew 16:21) which were the teachers and leaders of Israel. Jesus never leaves a problem without introducing the solution and as soon as Jesus said that He would “be killed” by men that He immediately resolved the issue by stating that He would be “raised from the dead” on the “third day” but the disciples had not yet believed in the True Power of God  because when the disciples witnessed Jesus doing all the miracles they had seen previously, that they saw Jesus as a man and failed to see Jesus as God! Jesus addressed their wrong thinking by telling them their mistake came because they were “not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” and then added that if we are to “follow [Jesus]” that we must take up our “cross” just as He was going to take up His Cross in Jerusalem. Then after Jesus Teaches the eternal significance of our “souls”, Jesus turns to the next Lesson with JQ#20 as He had to “rebuke” a demon that possessed a boy and the disciples were unable to cast the demon from him. Because the disciples could not cast out the demon, the father of the boy took him to Jesus and said that the disciples “could not cure him”. (Matthew 17:16) Jesus immediately rebuked the demon from the boy but only after Jesus used the circumstance to point out the reason for the disciples failure as Jesus declared “O faithless and perverse generation” (Matthew 17:17) which was directed not only at the disciples but to the father of the demon possessed boy as well. Failure to cast out the demon was identified as “faithless” and since Jesus added the term “perverse” to accompany “faithless” it would be reasonable to assume that Jesus is Teaching that our faith is futile if we build it on the wrong foundation — and since Jesus has been Teaching that our faith is misdirected because we trust “the things of men” more than we trust “the things of God”, that if our “faith” is in the power of men and not in the Power of God Himself that we will fail in our attempts to use our “faith” to help others. Jesus is using the Question “How long” (JQ#20  Matthew 17:17) to illustrate that He will not always be here on earth for us to bring our demon possessed children to and that the Truth of God is that we must develop our “faith” in God’s Ultimate Power in order that we shall be able to perform those things Jesus did, this working of the Power of God through us only comes when we realize that it is not the things of men that give us that Divine Power. Only the things of God working through men will bring the Power of God to bear on our worldly problems. Like the disciples, we see Jesus as a man doing miracles and fail to see that Jesus is the Son of God who came to reveal the Power of God and witness to the Glory of God and yet once Jesus had completed His earthly mission He would return to the Father.  The Legacy of Jesus is that He came to earth and to men to demonstrate how to connect to God and His Ultimate Power!  Our ability to be like God is through our “Faith in God”. Jesus was sent by God to “suffer” and to “die” but because Jesus had “FAITH IN GOD” and Jesus knew that God has Divine Power over Death and the Grave that God would demonstrate His Power to give life by raising Jesus the “third day” — we must see the death of Jesus not as a man being killed by men but as the Perfect Divine Sacrifice as God uses what man intends as evil to complete His Plan of Salvation and then we will no longer be a “faithless and perverse generation” — sounds  like “tough love” does it not?