JULY 04 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 04  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, another morning and another day to praise You for the “life” that You have abundantly poured out on us. Lord, we most often fail to see Your Glory in our getting up out of bed in the morning and our laying our heads on a soft pillow in that bed in the  evening and all the mercies that You pour out daily on such an undeserving world. Lord I pray that my heart will always be directed toward the Glory of God and that my Path will always be the “Way, the “Truth”, and the “Life” that is found only in living my daily life for Jesus. Guide my thoughts, Direct my steps, and Forgive me of my “spiritual” shortcomings for it is in Your Name and for the Kingdom’s sake that I pray.    HAPPY 4TH OF JULY    *******   “If The Son therefore will set you free, you will truly be the children of liberty.” JOHN 8:36 *******   AMEN

JULY 04  THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus ended JQ#20 by announcing His Resurrection to follow His Death and was using JQ#20 to Teach us about ourselves as He pointed out that we are a “faithless and perverse generation” and in this next series of Questions Jesus is pointing out how to correct the problem that each generation faces —— that problem is how do we grow our faith and become Holy while living in the world that draws us away from God? Jesus never exposes a “wound” without applying “healing” to that wound and this Spiritual deficiency is no different. Jesus in JQ#20 said the root cause of our perverseness was our “unbelief” and that if we develop “faith” just the size of a “mustard seed” that we can grow our faith and increase in our Holiness. Jesus then announced yet again about His Resurrection. Then in JQ#21 we see Jesus Teaching us how to correct the problem of “unbelief” that was exposed in JQ#20 and if we study what Jesus Teaches in the next passages that we will learn that Jesus points out a shortcoming in our life and then Teaches us how to make a “physical” weakness into a “spiritual” strength! The context for these Lessons is Matthew 17:24 through Matthew 18:35 and when this section of scripture is looked at as a whole Lesson we will see Jesus is Teaching us how to look at our daily lives and see how God is working and equipping us though our day-to-day existence to grow our faith and to become more like Jesus as we learn to see God in all that we do. This next Lesson starts with Jesus performing a miracle with a “fish” and “taxes” and then there are several Lessons that seem unattached but when viewed as a whole we see that Jesus is Teaching us how to relate to the world around us from a spiritual perspective and that always involves using the tools God has equipped us with to help others. God never promotes Himself but has always sacrificed Himself for our needs and now He has announced His upcoming death which if we will but stop and “think” about “why” then we will see the selflessness of His Actions that benefit others! With JQ#21 Jesus is Teaching us how to use our daily lives to Glorify God and instead of always “thinking” about ourselves and getting lost in our selfishness that we must learn to “think” about others and care for them and trust God to take care of us. Jesus started this series of “faith” lessons with a “miracle” fishing trip and demonstrated how God can work through our daily lives and then Jesus continues this “faith” Lesson by focusing our attention on building our faith by considering others as He directs us to “think” about daily things in our lives such as “lost sheep”, the act of “forgiveness”, and considering our “fellow servants”. It is important for us to remember that Jesus always Teaches a series of Lessons and then He checks to make sure that we “understand” what He has been trying to Teach ——— and in this section Jesus is telling us that to “understand” others that we must “think” of others. I am sure that when Peter pulled up that first fish and found in its mouth enough in one piece of money to pay the temple tax for himself and Jesus that Peter stopped and “thought” about Jesus giving him a solution to his problem without Peter having to lay out the problem to Jesus because Jesus already knew Peter’s need! Then Jesus solved the problem by telling Peter to use his daily skills and trust God for the results and there in place of a problem in Peter’s life was a miracle! We all know about “taxes” so we can easily relate to that lesson and the next lesson on how to live a life pleasing to God starts with another problem we all seem to deal with and that is the need to be “better” than the next guy — or have you never worried about “paying taxes” or “getting ahead”? 

JULY 03 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 03  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, we give You all the Praise for You are the One that is Worthy of All Praise. Lord Jesus, the more I study Your Word, the more I realize what a tremendous Sacrifice that You made and when I consider that the world has always turned from Your Sufficient Grace to the disappointments of the world, it really is amazing that You would become our Salvation at such Great Expense!?!  Lord, I shudder to think of the many times that I have rejected Your Truth and chased after the pleasures of this world and Lord, the scary part is that occasionally I will let my physical desires dust off old memories of my worldly life and for a moment I forget the despair that my disobedient spirit caused in my old life and I turn from Your “Way” back into the shadows of this world, but then Your Grace shines the Light of Truth on my iniquity and I can see and appreciate what Great Love You have demonstrated towards all sinners and I return to the well lit path of the “TRUTH of GOD” and the “joy of my salvation” and once again raise my voice in Praise to the One that Sacrificed so much to set me free from sin.    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus addressed not only the Truth of God that we are “equipped” by God with the necessary tools to “answer” all the questions life presents to us but He also revealed in greater detail the difference between living a temporary life in the “physical” world with our flesh and preparing our souls for our “eternal spiritual” life in the “spiritual” world — Jesus has drawn us a clear picture so far that illuminates in our darkened mind that the “Spiritual World” is “Eternal” and that all “souls” will spend their “Eternity” either in the Presence of God in Heaven or those “souls” that choose to reject God will spend their “Eternity” separated from God in Hell. With JQ#21 Jesus is Teaching us that if we will use our God-given intellect to make good choices with our Free Will that we will be able to “reason” that the “world” offers us nothing “eternal” and the “eternal” offers us nothing “worldly”. Jesus points out to Peter with JQ#21 that if Peter will stop and “think” that Peter will see this distinction being played out in our daily lives as Jesus asks Peter “From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?” (Matthew 17:25) Peter gave the correct answer when he said “from strangers” (Matthew 17:26) At this point we should stop and think about “taxes” and the fact that “taxes” are part of this “physical” life but we should also understand that Jesus is pointing out that if we follow Him that just by living our daily lives and looking at everything from a “spiritual” perspective that we will see God’s Provisions for us to be able to make our way through this “physical” world without compromising our “souls” — Jesus instructed Peter to pay the “temple tax” and fulfill his “physical/worldly” obligation but Jesus also instructed Peter to trust that God will provide his daily needs through his daily life which was fishing. We have a valuable Lesson to learn from “fish” and “taxes” if we look at this “miracle” from God’s Perspective! We can go about our daily lives and realize that God knows our needs before we ask but we must “trust” Him and do those things that He instructs us to do — Jesus used the “fish” because Peter knew about fishing, but God is able to provide our needs using the things we are familiar with but we have never looked at them from the perspective that God has placed us in that position so that when we open our “spiritual” eyes and “Trust” Him with our “Spiritual” hearts that He will be able to show us His Glory which is Always Surrounding our Daily Lives but we just don’t stop and “Think” about what we see from God’s Perspective! Who would have ever thought that paying “taxes” could be a way to Glorify God? 

JULY 02 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 02  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, forgive me for all the time that I have spent worrying about the things of the world that have no impact on my spiritual well being. Lord You have demonstrated to me time and time again the Faithfulness of the Father to Provide everything we need to live a Holy life and yet we succumb to the flesh and seek to live a “worldly” life and when we look to things of this world to give us happiness we are always disappointed. Lord Jesus You have never disappointed us and the Father has never failed us in any way so why Lord do we insist on holding on so tight to that which disappoints us? Lord I pray for discernment to know when I am letting myself drift back into the concerns of the world which is always in a direction away from You, for when we finally realize we are adrift in the sea of worries that we are in a boat without a paddle and that Lord is a sinking feeling! So Lord, open my spiritual eyes so that I can see my way back to the course you have set for me and I will rely not on my ability to row my own boat but on Your Promise to never leave us nor forsake us!!!    AMEN

JTHE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus never lets an opportunity to Teach “satellite” Lessons go to waste as He seizes every opportunity to reveal several Truths of God to us just by asking a Question that makes us stop and “think” about the world around us, and when we have to use our God-given intellect to understand our own individual lives we learn that God has equipped us with two invaluable tools with which we can use to work our way through all our daily problems; God’s Tool #1 is our “Free Will” which is the characteristic we possess that is most similar to the “image” of God in that with our Free Will Gift from God we can see that our future can be influenced by the “Choices” we make using that Free Will which is ours and ours alone. By giving us Free Will and making us live with the “Consequences” of our “Choices”  God has given us the “Power” to influence both our future and our past and we cannot defer that Power to another entity, we must exercise our Free Will and demonstrate our God-given responsibility of self-sufficiency by using only our God-given abilities. God’s Tool #2 is our “God-given Intellect” which we must use in conjunction with our Free Will to make Godly-decisions that will affect our “Spiritual Well Being” thereby influencing our eternal destiny. If we abuse our Free Will by not using our God-given Intellect then we are in reality going against God’s Will for our lives and going against God is NEVER a good thing for the path away from God leads to the destruction of our soul, and that can never be considered a good thing. We see Jesus telling Peter to stop and use his God-given intellect to “observe” the “physical” world and make “Spiritual” sense out of our day-to-day lives when Jesus asked back-to-back Questions “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?” [JQ#21a & b] (Matthew 17:25) Peter now has to use his God-given intellect at the insistence of God Himself because Peter is standing before God in the form of the “Son” knowing that the Question Jesus is asking Peter is because of a question Peter was going to ask Jesus. By Jesus “anticipating” what Peter was going to ask and “preventing” Peter from asking it, Peter now knows that Jesus is God because only God knows what we need before we even ask! Peter also knows that by Jesus asking the Question about where “…do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes…” that Jesus knows everything about him and now Jesus is instructing Peter to stop and “think” — Peter will find out that he already knows the “answer” to the Jesus Question but like us, we know the Truth of God but need instructions on how to properly apply that God-given knowledge to living our daily lives. Peter gave a one word answer to the tax collectors when he said “Yes” to their question about paying the temple tax and now Peter gives a two word answer to Jesus when Jesus asks Peter about “the kings of the earth” collecting taxes as Peter responds to Jesus “From Strangers” (Matthew 17:26). Jesus demonstrated to Peter that Peter has all the answers (consider that Peter got both answers correct and only had to use three words to answer two questions) if he stops and uses his God-given intellect to “think” — but what we all must learn from Jesus is how to incorporate the Truth of God with our daily lives. Jesus demonstrated that He is God by then performing the miracle of the fish and the coin through the daily life of Peter when Jesus sent Peter fishing. It was only when Peter obeyed God that the miracle occurred because Peter had to first cast his net in “Faith” in order to pull up fish in his net — this was an activity Peter performed thousand of times before but this time Peter was following God’s instructions and the results was the resolution of Peter’s problem with taxes! Only God can take our daily lives and solve our problems by our listening to Him and simply keep doing our day-to-day tasks because God chooses to work His Miracles through us while we go about living daily for Him — can’t you see the Glory of God in your daily life or do you need to stop and “Think” about it from God’s Perspective?

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?  

JUNE 30 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)

JUNE 30  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, another day You have given me breath and life, I pray that everything I do and say will be a reflection of the Grace so freely bestowed by the Loving Father on a sinner such as I. Lord there are so few things that we can do that really Honor and Glorify You so I pray that I will Trust and Obey You today and do that which You have planned and YOU HAVE WILLED ALREADY FOR MY LIFE! I lift my family up to You now in humble prayer, You know the needs in the depths of our heart and soul and so I place them in Your Healing Hands. Lord Jesus, You have told us that if we believe on You that we will become “One” with You, just as You and the Father are “One”. Grant it Lord that we see the Heavenly Prize of Belief, the Daily Comfort of Faith, and the Joy and Peace of Your Forgiveness.           AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus is the “Way” and He certainly has a “Way” of Teaching that makes the Lesson stick with us and with this “fishy” Lesson Jesus Teaches us some valuable Truths of God about “Faith” using a “fish” and a single “piece of money”. The scene is set when Peter is approached by the temple tax collectors from the Capernaum synagogue and they in effect inform Peter that Jesus is delinquent on His “taxes” and they are wondering if and when Jesus is going to pay the temple tax? (Matthew 17:24) Peter told them “Yes” and then went to tell Jesus. When Peter entered into the house where Jesus was staying, and even before Peter could ask Jesus if He was going to “pay the temple tax”, Matthew records that Jesus “anticipated” that Peter was going to ask Him about taxes. (Matthew 17:25) This simple word “anticipated” tells us volumes about God and we should pull over at this point and examine all the connotations surrounding the meaning and reality of the fact that even before Peter could say a word, that Jesus KNEW what Peter was going to ask. The popular translation for the word used for “anticipated” in Matthew 17:25 is “prevented” and is used in the sense that when Peter started to speak that Jesus in effect said “I know what you’re going to ask Me so let Me ask you a Question first” which further identified and confirmed the deity of Jesus Christ because only the Divine Omniscient God knows everything that happens without having to depend on reports from outside sources. Only Jesus demonstrates that He is God and has all the Powers of God, and only Jesus reveals the Omniscient character of God to us as another Truth of God!!! The fact that God knows everything about us is considered by some to be an invasion of privacy but to those that have nothing to hide, it is a comfort to know that not only does God KNOW everything that happens to us, that God CARES about how those events affect our eternal soul and uses each circumstance to prove that He is a Loving and Caring God and that He only wants the best for our future.  God uses every circumstance in our chaotic lives to point us to the Truth of God that He will “Teach” us through the Holy Spirit how to “learn” kingdom wisdom from everything if we will Trust God to decide what is “Right” and “Wrong” in our daily lives. Therefore when we read that Jesus “anticipated” what Peter was going to ask, we should understand that “Divine Anticipation” as God telling us “I Got This!” and Trust and Obey Him when He tells us how to handle the situation — even if the solution seems as “far-fetched” as “going fishing” in order to “pay taxes” ——— and add to that the fact that all Peter had to do was take the first fish he caught, look in the mouth of the fish and find in a single coin with the exact amount to pay taxes for two, not just one! This is the Truth of the Economy of God: God always provides the simple solution and that when we depend on His Provisions that we always have “enough” — regardless of the size or quantity needed, GOD ALWAYS PROVIDES “ENOUGH” !!! God never solves a problem without putting His Signature on it and that “Signature of God” is that the only possible explanation to the “solution” is the unexplainable “Mystery” of God. Who was the last person that could tell you your problem before you spoke a word and then solved your problem by some outrageous solution like getting the exact amount needed to pay your taxes in a single coin from the mouth of the first fish you caught when you went fishing instead of paying your taxes? I know, I know, it doesn’t make any sense at all, and I think that is just exactly the point, if we can make sense of it then we will take credit for it but I can just imagine Peter laughing while dropping the coin into the tax collectors hand along with several fish scales and then going home and having himself a big fish fry wondering — who’s going to make the tartar sauce?!?!?

JUNE 29  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, no other name but the Name of Jesus carries the weight of eternity for every soul that ever lived! Every soul ever created by God has uttered or will utter the name “Jesus” and Lord we know that when Your Precious Name is spoken from the heart in true humility that You will respond with Peace, Love, and Joy that can only come from speaking that Name given by the Father Himself that every soul that utters that Name with Respect and Honor will be Respected and Honored in return by adoption into the Family of God through God’s Plan of Salvation. O Precious Name, Jesus, Jesus, JESUS!!! May my life reflect the Glory and Grace and the Mercy that has been extended to this sinner because of the Power of the Name of JESUS!     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus Teaches us so many side Lessons while He is Teaching a specific Lesson that we must always stop and look at all the circumstances involved with each Jesus Question and we must also keep in mind that the “Question” is being asked by One that has Supreme Knowledge of all things, He knows the deepest desires of our hearts as well as all the thoughts we think inwardly, even though those thoughts are so deep in our selfish desires that they do not even surface to our own consciousness — yet He still knows every thought that we have!?!? This knowledge is revealed to us if we will look at the circumstance surrounding this specific incident and the most unexpected way that Jesus resolves the issue with the most unusual use for fish and faith that we will ever encounter. First we must look at the “characters” involved and they are: (1) Jesus, (2) Peter [Simon Bar-Jonah], (3) Tax collectors from the temple at Capernaum, (4) a fish, and (5) a piece of money. Let’s look at each “character” separately to get the full impact of this scenario and the miracle produced from the most unlikely source of tax revenue ever recorded! First to consider is Jesus — Jesus has been casting out demons, raising people from the dead, feeding the multitudes, giving sight to the blind, healing every sickness brought to Him, walking on water, calming storms, and teaching about the “Spiritual” life being lived in our “eternal souls”, our “physical” bodies being temporary, the eventually of standing before Almighty God and the Final Judgement, and the reality of both Heaven and fellowship with the Father and of Hell and our eternal separation from God Himself, and the scary reality IS that our eternity will be determined by how responsible we are with the Gift of Free Will bestowed upon us unconditionally by the Supreme Power!!! So when we look at the Life lived in the flesh by Jesus so far, we can only come to One Conclusion: Jesus is the Christ and is the Only Begotten Son of the Father, and Jesus is both “fully man” born of flesh and “fully God” for He is the earthly embodiment of God’s Holy Spirit!!! So the first “character” is “God’s Son” on a Mission from God, Jesus is a Gift from God because God “so loved the world” that God has given “His Only Begotten Son” for a single purpose, that by belief in Jesus being God’s Son that all those that “believe” will never “perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The second “character” is Simon Bar-Jonah whom Jesus named “Peter” when Jesus called Simon the fisherman to follow Him and be His disciple. Peter is the first one to declare that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” and it was Peter that got out of the boat during a great storm at sea and actually walked a couple of steps on the water Himself before sinking beneath the waves and crying “Jesus save me!”.  Our third character is a “tax collector” sent from the synagogue at Capernaum to collect the temple tax from Jesus and it was the tax collector that started the miracle by asking Peter if Jesus is going to “pay the temple tax?” — just another innocent “tax collector” doing their job of tracking down and collecting “taxes” from everyone they can find?? The fourth character is the most unusual of all when considering God, His followers, and tax collectors hunting down God and collecting taxes from Him, and that character is almost as slimy as the tax collector — enter character #4, the “fish”. The last character is not usually thought of as a “character per se” but everyone knows that all our personalities are affected by “money” and so we are going to give “a piece of money” the status of a “character” in this scene which denies human explanation anyway. Now that we have all the “characters” identified this would be a good time to exercise our individual intellects and without reading the scriptures further that we at this point stop and consider the circumstance and ask the cliche “W W J D ?” and just try to “imagine” why in this circumstance with these really odd characters that Jesus would first ask Peter JQ#21 — “What do you think, Simon?” (Matthew 17:25) Don’t cheat by reading ahead but just try to imagine a scenario using all these “characters” and put yourself in Peter’s shoes and use your own intellect and answer how you “think” Jesus is going to handle this tax collector?!?!? In other words, fill in the blank with your name as Jesus asks YOU, “What do you think, ____(YOUR NAME GOES HERE)_______________?” (Matthew 17:25)

JUNE 28 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)

JUNE 28  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, Forgive me for not doing more with the provisions and the “understandings” that You have given me. Lord, Your Teachings give all who read Your Word “Spiritual Insight” to the world that we live in as well as the issues that “our generation” is facing  ——— and yet I have done so little with those precious resources to make the world a better place — forgive me. Lord may I truly take this “second chance” to do that which will honor and glorify our Father in heaven as Your Spirit has shown me that “His Purpose” is the process itself. Give me Grace then to be a good steward of the Understanding imparted by the Holy Spirit and the Wisdom to use whatever circumstance is presented to us in our day-to-day lives to bring Glory to God. {{Once again, the Holy Spirit has brought to my attention a prayer written in 2004 that shows the timelessness of God’s Understanding!!! Once there is an issue, it will remain an issue until we use every resource available to bring the issue before God and enter into His Work with Him for He has chosen to do HIS WORK through those that choose to ENTER INTO HIS LABORS WITH HIM!!!}} Please read the following prayer written years ago but still current and see if there is something you personally could do today to honor God, pray about it, and then let the Lord lead you in doing His will for your life so that others will be helped by your obedience. Prayer from 2004: “Jesus, Lord how I seek to live my life in a way that is pleasing to You, and not for my sake and all my old selfish reasons but for Your sake and for reaching this world with Your Message of Repentance. Lord Jesus, as a nation and as a people, and as individuals we have turned from God, and we have “leaned on our own understanding” and that also is a sin against God. We have sat silently by and let abominations against Your Holiness gain popular acceptance. Lord, we have not fought the battle of freedom for our rights as Christians and our nation is losing the God-given right to worship You freely, we have not fought for the sanctity of marriage and we are losing our families, and worst of all, we are killing our own babies and are losing our future and our hope -- and we let the courts legislate the sins of our generation into the “law” of our nation!?!?!?!? O Forgive us Lord and drive us to true repentance and the path that will bring us back to serving the One True Light and the Living God”!!!     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus, in this next ‘section’ of scripture, Jesus addresses several issues that seem lighthearted at first but we must keep in mind while reading this passage that this is God in the flesh asking us to “think” about issues and while “thinking” on these issues we should keep in our mind that Jesus has just previously warned us that there are those that seek to “destroy” our souls — therefore let us try and understand the Truth of God that is always uncovered whenever we seek it. The first such Lesson is found in Matthew 17:24-27 and that Lesson starts with a question from “those who received the temple tax” (the “tax” collectors) when they asked Peter, “Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?” (Matthew 17:24) My first thought when I read this verse is “Wow, Jesus had to deal with tax collectors (the ROMAN IRS) too” so I was very interested in how Jesus would handle the situation. Peter handled the situation like we should handle circumstances where we find ourselves having to “defend” following Jesus — Peter responded “Yes” to the “tax collectors” and then he went to ask Jesus Himself about what had just transpired. As Peter entered the house we read that “Jesus anticipated him, saying, ‘What do you think, Simon?’” (Matthew 17:25) This is the beginning of a very valuable Lesson and the revelation of another Truth of God because before Simon Peter had a chance to ask Jesus the next question about paying the temple tax, “Jesus anticipated him…” and then to make it a one-on-one personal relationship Jesus called Simon by name and then God Himself looked a mortal in the eye and asked “What do you think?” !?!?!? Wow again!!! God KNOWS EVERYTHING and can “anticipate” our questions yet He stops and asks us what we “think” about the “question” which He knows even if we have not asked Him the question yet?!?!? Before you continue, it is a good time and stop to ask yourself this very same simple question but answer it only after you fully realize that it is God Almighty Himself asking the question directly and personally to you!!! — “What do you think, _{add your name here}?” (Matthew 17:25)