JULY 01 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 01  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, thank You God for Your Patience with me and I pray to be more like Jesus so that Your Patience will be perfected in me, for Your Perfection is only possible by being like the Perfect Example — Jesus! Only Jesus has been declared “Beloved” by God and only Jesus has also been declared by God as “My Son in whom I am well pleased” and it is only Jesus whom God says that all who would try to please Him that we should “Listen to [Jesus]” for it is only Jesus who has instructed us that we can be “One with the Father” if we “LISTEN to and BELIEVE in Jesus” we will become “One” with Jesus and the Father for Jesus and the Father are “ONE”! Lord Jesus, Teach me Your Patience that I can become “One” with You because in order to become “One”, I must completely get rid of “self” and learn to patiently “serve others” as You Yourself came as a Man and served the world as a Servant!!!     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus should have really grabbed our full attention when Peter walked into the room and Jesus told Peter in effect: “I know what you are going to ask Me so let Me ask you a question and show you that I AM God and I am able to both ‘anticipate’ your ‘question and answer’ while demonstrating the Power of God to ‘provide’ everything you need to solve all your problems — just listen to Me and obey My instructions!” I know that when we read the account of Jesus sending Peter fishing to get the required “temple tax” found in Matthew 17:24-27 that Jesus doesn’t say exactly those words but if we look at what Jesus did “Say” then we can see that Jesus is revealing some very important Truths of God to us. First Jesus started revealing that God wants us to be involved in “being the solution” to our own problems which is an example of God’s Supreme Self Sufficiency. God is the only uncreated entity and does not need any outside help to be “who” God is and since God is Spirit we can say that to accomplish everything He Wills us to do God does not require any “physical” entity to accomplish His Will — this can only be explained by God having a “Spiritual Power” we cannot comprehend and this “Spiritual Power” exhibits itself through a “Supreme Intellect” that cannot be explained but it can be observed, and these “observations” of God’s Supreme Intellect are the foundation of our “Faith in God” which is based on observing the “physical” universe which is only here because God used His Superior and Supreme Intellect and merely “Spoke” everything except mankind into existence (God reserved His “Hands On” Method for Creating mankind in His Image!). God is Supremely Self Sufficient because everything He needed to Create the Universe was contained within God Himself and that is what Jesus is showing Peter when Jesus asked JQ#21 “What do you think, Simon?” (Matthew 17:25a) I am sure that Peter was taken aback by Jesus, first because Jesus “prevented” Peter from blurting out the “problem” which Jesus did in order to demonstrate that God “knows” what we need without even asking and also to demonstrate that we are made in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:26)  and part of that “image of God” is that God wants us to develop the kind of “Faith in Him” that we will know that if God allows a problem into our lives that He will provide within our own abilities what we need to solve that problem. Just look at this passage, we read that the “solution” to Peter’s “problem” was a “solution” that Peter already had within himself — the ability had already been given to him by God to resolve his problem and “God’s solution” was within Peter’s “comfort zone”! Jesus knew that Peter was a fisherman and therefore the “solution” was customized to those things Peter “already knew how to do” as we read Jesus stating to Peter, “Then the sons are free. Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.” (Matthew 17:26-27).  Peter had done these very actions for his entire life and probable had caught literally thousands of fish but only when Peter did what he had been doing all his life the “Way” Jesus told him to do it and for the “Purpose” that Jesus intended for Peter’s life, did Peter’s day-to-day life produce the “miracle” that became the “solution” to what had become a problem in Peter’s daily life! Jesus is demonstrating that He KNOWS our problems and that He will PROVIDE within our daily lives and our natural abilities the solution if we will TRUST GOD. I am sure that Peter had never considered that he had everything in his daily life that he needed to solve life’s problems. It was probably very comforting to Peter to know that he didn’t have to learn any new skills and I know that Peter’s “Faith” grew leaps and bounds as soon as he reached down and grabbed the “fish that [came] up first” and “[opened] its mouth” and found a single coin that was the exact amount to pay the temple tax for both Peter and Jesus and thus Peter demonstrated his “likeness of God’s Self Sufficiency” (because we are created in the image of God)  to resolve his problem but only when Peter did what he did day-in-and-day-out “in the Power and Name of Jesus” did Peter realize God is the God of our daily lives and that God will never require anything of us that He hasn’t already equipped us for, and we should Trust that God has us doing what we do in our daily lives because that is what we need to be doing to Honor and Glorify Him! Faith comes from observing God at work in our daily lives so if your “Faith” is not growing maybe you should stop and “think” more about the abilities God has given you and look for your solutions within those abilities or do you think God doesn’t know what you need to solve your problems?