FEBRUARY 10 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 10  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, Jesus, Jesus, O the Privilege it is to call on Your Name! Lord each day I have need of Your Mercy and Grace and each day my heart overflows with Praise for You have abundantly supplied all that I need, in spite of my continual stumbling. Lord, You know my heart and I am getting more secure in Your Love because I know that You know the depths of my sinful nature and yet Your Grace abounds deeper still — not because of anything I have done to deserve even the smallest of Your attentions, but You continue to Forgive all of my daily transgressions that I present to You and You Lovingly Guide me to Your Peace because that is Who You chose to be for our sakes! O the Mystery of God, that the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Pure Innocent Redeemer who chose to die on a cross for the guilty, to suffer the agony we deserve and give us access to Your Heaven. Praise the Forgiving God!!!     AMEN 

THE JESUS QUESTIONS   

JESUS started JQ#03 with a section on “worry” and in this section Jesus uses 8 Questions to get us thinking about “worry”. This section in Matthew 6:25-34 contains several verses that the Holy Spirit impressed upon me on my Spiritual Journey to Truth that I feel has led me back to the right path when the world had closed in on me like it so often does to all of us. When you finally get back on the right path again you see that it was some form of “worry” that distracted you and just that quick when we take our eyes off the Truth and let the world and all its worries get our attention we find ourselves off the main road — if we are lucky we will be on a stretch of road that has “warning bumps” to get our focus back where it is supposed to be and the Spirit will redirect our wayward steps and correct our course back from the Broad Path of Destruction to the “Narrow Paths of Righteousness”! Matthew 6:33 is one of those verses for me that has kept me focused on Jesus and when my eyes are firmly fixed on Him, for Jesus again and again tells us that worries and wrong doing have no place in our life. I will attempt to share how my wanderings into darkness were redirected to the Light and the right paths from this section where Jesus Teaches us about “worry” by stating very emphatically: “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:25a) It is a very bold statement but let’s consider JESUS is making it! The “Therefore” comes immediately after Jesus had stated in Matthew 6:24, “You cannot serve God and mammon” and the implication here is that if you chose to “serve God” then there is no need to “worry”. Jesus uses the next 7 verses (Matthew 6:24-32) to show that “worry” is primarily caused by serving “mammon” but closes with two powerful verses (Matthew 6:33-34) that show how to eliminate “worry” — spiritual speed bumps if you will — so let’s look at each of the 8 Questions in this section and apply them to reducing “worry” in our lives. JQ#3a —“Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25b) Each Question that Jesus asks is to make us stop and think about the simple Questions we encounter in our daily lives and give Him back a simple answer that shows Him we are listening to His Teachings. For instance, when I read this passage with the intent of “learning from Jesus” I can more easily come to an answer because Jesus never asks a Question without a specific answer in mind that will Teach followers a specific point that will make our life better if we bother to listen to His Question and answer Him honestly, keeping in mind that if we listen to our answer back to Him that we will indeed learn the Lesson He is intent on Teaching and within every Jesus Lesson is a Truth of God! I am sure that if you stop and consider that “life IS more than food” and “the body IS more than clothing” then you will start to see what Jesus is trying to Teach and the answer then is a simple “Yes, I see now that You have corrected my course”. Read Matthew 6:25 again and literally pray your answer to Jesus through your prayer and then “wait on the LORD” for the blessings that He will pour out!