MARCH 08 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#08 “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4)

 MARCH 08  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#08 “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Lord we know that because You are Risen that we can have confidence that our sins are Forgiven. Because You are Risen, we can Hope for our Eternal Fellowship with You and the Father immersed in the Eternal Light of the Holy Spirit!  Lord, forgive me when I get distracted by the world, for when I think I am in control, I quickly see that there is no “Power” in me — what “Power” that is in me is there because of the Marvelous Gift of Grace! Lord always keep Your Life-Death-Crucifixion-Burial & Resurrection before me for when my eyes are on You, I can’t see anything but You and the Living God!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS healed the paralytic and there was a “multitude” that heard Jesus when He stated the Divine Truth that He had the “power on earth to forgive sins” (Matthew 9:6). It should be noted here that the “multitudes” and the “Scribes” all witnessed the same event but there were two different outcomes: (1) Those that believed Jesus, “marveled and glorified God” (Matthew 9:8) and (2) those that accused Jesus of “blasphemy” were exposed as having “evil in [their] hearts” (Matthew 9:4). This section also was full of examples of God’s Law of Choice and Consequence. One of God’s ways of involving our personal actions in His Work is the Gift of Free Will — God will reveal Himself and His Powers and He will make it clear what His Purpose and Intent towards us is, but He never forces us to choose Him! God wants us to be Free Agents so that we choose what we want to choose; however, He makes it perfectly clear that even though we are free to choose  our “actions” that God has already determined the “Consequence” of our “Free Will Choice”. The Truth of God IS that God NEVER changes and the “Consequence” of our actions is as constant as the effects of gravity for they are the result of God’s Law which is never changing and fairly administered to all creation. It is God’s Laws and His Divine Power that keeps the stars on their course through His heavens and we are able to chart our course because of that same consistency of God’s Laws. God declared in the Garden of Eden that the “penalty for sin is death” but He also provided an “acceptable sacrifice” to cover Adam and Eve’s sin when God killed an animal (most likely a lamb without blemish) which He then presented to Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. God has been consistent to punish sin with death (i.e. the Great Flood) and yet with each judgement God gives us a choice — God told Noah to get on the ark but God did not force Noah on the ark. God rewarded Noah’s choice by giving all who chose to follow God’s instructions with “life” and those that chose not to get on the ark with “death” thereby administering faithfully His Laws. I challenge you to read this Matthew 9:1-9 passage again and consider how God’s Law of Choice and Consequence was fairly applied to (1) the ones that brought the paralytics to Jesus (2) some of the scribes (3) the paralytic himself and (4) the multitudes that witnessed Jesus physically healing the paralytic. It is very interesting that Jesus said “Arise and walk” in verse 5, then again in verse 6 he says “Arise, take up your bed, and go…” then in verse 7 we read that the paralytic “arose and departed”. The Lesson is that Jesus wants us to get personally involved and exercise our Gift of Free Will to “act” upon our belief in God. Jesus then in verse 9 shows that His intent is for us to “Arise and go” when Jesus tells Matthew “Follow Me” and we read that Matthew “arose and followed Him.” (Matthew 1-9)  Who are you going to chose to follow — Jesus or the world of men?!?!?