NOVEMBER 20 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 20  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer   

JESUS, each morning my spirit looks to Your Spirit for the renewing of Your Mercies and for my “daily bread” that will nourish both my soul and my physical body. Lord You  were obedient to the Father unto death as You suffered and died for my iniquities in order that my sins would be forgiven and through Your Righteousness and through the Remission of Sin I might have Fellowship with the Father — and the Really Good News is that “IT IS FINISHED” and there is NOTHING LEFT FOR GOD TO DO — and to receive God’s Free Pardon from sin and Your Perfect Peace, all that we need to do is to Believe “IT IS FINISHED” and accept “YOUR GIFT OF GRACE” — so I pray as did the disciples that you would daily grow my FAITH and help me with my unbelief. Lord You are Sovereign and I believe that “all things are possible with God”!!!   AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus had just sat down at the Passover Table in the upper room and Jesus opened the Passover Meal with an announcement that one of the disciples eating this Passover Meal would “betray” Him. (Matthew 26:21b) This statement of imminent betrayal got the disciples attention and it should get our attention as well for Jesus is the Master Teacher and is demonstrating that His Purpose is to educate the world of God’s Plan of Salvation and with both by His Life and soon, very soon, His Death! Jesus will reveal the importance of  Living a Sinless Life up to His Death on the Cross to completing God’s Plan that was in place “before the foundation of the world”!!! As the murmurs of His disciples died down as they had each asked “Is it I”, that “Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.” (Matthew 26:26) This was the institution of the Lord’s Supper or Communion which is still observed today but even still today after being observed for over 2000 years we still miss the total significance of what Jesus meant when He said, “Take, eat…” in reference to the Passover Bread He offered to the disciples as Jesus “broke” the bread which He explained as He had done with His Parables that the “bread” was symbolic of His Body which Scripture records that Jesus broke the bread with His own hands and then Jesus “gave it to the disciples” (Matthew 26:26) We miss that Jesus voluntarily “broke” the “bread” and “gave it” freely to those that had chosen to share the Passover with Him. Jesus then did the same with the Passover Cup as Jesus clearly commanded His disciples, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sin.” (Matthew 26:27-28) Jesus could not have Taught a better Lesson than calling our attention to our “sin of betrayal” of which we are all guilty and then Jesus demonstrated God’s Solution to the sin problem by Jesus Himself having “His Body Broken” and “His Blood Shed” for the “remission of sin”!!! In the continuity of God’s Master Plan, Jesus and the disciples ate the Passover Meal and went out to the Mount of Olives and again to get the disciples attention and to focus them on the important issue, Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night…” (Matthew 26:31) but as with all Lessons Jesus Teaches, He never leaves us hanging as to what He “Means” for immediately Jesus referred to Scriptures and explained “the Shepherd” would be killed and the “sheep scattered” but as part of God’s Plan that once the “Shepherd” is killed that God will “resurrect” the “Shepherd” and Jesus has made it perfectly clear that He is the “Good Shepherd” and that He has Supreme Confidence that He “MUST DIE” and that He “WILL BE RAISED THE THIRD DAY”!!! Once again God demonstrates that everything is part of God’s Plan of Salvation and everything is “Under His Control” — up to and including death — AND RESURRECTION!!!  

NOVEMBER 19 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 19  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Lord as I start another day in Your Word I praise you for being Obedient to the Father and for willingly facing death on the cross for my sake, for shedding Your Precious Blood for the remission of my sin ——— You ARE the Son of God and lived the Perfect Sinless Life but exchanged that Divine Perfection for my pardon!?! Lord Jesus teach me to be a willing servant of the Most High God and to be a good steward of the blessings that He pours out daily along with the greatest of all blessings — GRACE. Lord I deserve death for my many iniquities and shortcomings so as I start this day I give Thanks for Grace with one breath and plead for Mercy with the next!   AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has made His Purpose clear with His announcement that He was to “be delivered up to be crucified” and when next He was anointed with oil, He explained the oil was for “My burial”!  It should have been clear to the disciples that Jesus was to be the Passover Lamb and fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah but they were blinded by the world as each generation is blinded by the deceitful world in which we live. Matthew records that Judas Iscariot had conspired with the chief priests to betray Jesus and “from that time [Judas] sought opportunity to betray Him.” (Matthew 26:17) None of His disciples had yet understood that Jesus was to be the Passover Lamb even though Jesus had plainly told them He was to die in Jerusalem at the Passover. Jesus however was being obedient to God’s Plan and He continued to Teach His disciples by living the perfect example. “Now on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?’” (Matthew 26:17) Jesus continues Teaching as He instructs His disciples on the preparation of His Last Passover and He tells them to “go to a certain man” and tell the man, “The Teacher says, ‘My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples’” (Matthew 26:18) So again Jesus is telling His disciples that the Event that Jesus became flesh for was about to occur and Jesus makes it clear that it is the Passover that is His Purpose. The “disciples did as Jesus had directed them” and as Jesus sat down with the twelve and began eating the Passover, Jesus again made a statement that the disciples and Judas Iscariot especially should have understood that Jesus was saying that He knew everything that was going to happen when Jesus made this statement while sitting at His Last Passover Supper with His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.” (Matthew 26:21) Jesus demonstrates with this statement that He has knowledge of the future events for He listed this sequence of Divine Events when Jesus said (1) that He will be delivered up by the chief priests, (2) that He would be crucified, (3) that He would be buried, and now He is revealing (4) that it is one of His own disciples that is going to betray Him. Instead of marveling at the fact that Jesus knows everything that is going to happen and give God the Glory for using His Only Begotten Son for the Plan of Salvation, the disciples did exactly what we all do in our worldly selfishness as they each asked, “Lord, is it I?” (Matthew 26:22) and Jesus answered as He always answered by referring to the Scriptures as He answered His disciples, “The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.” (Matthew 26:24) Jesus is being sacrificed on the cross because it is the Father’s Plan of Salvation and not because of one man’s betrayal of the Truth of Jesus nor is Jesus being crucified because Satan had convinced Judas to sell his soul for 30 pieces of silver! Jesus demonstrates by His every action that GOD HAS A PLAN and that SALVATION WILL COME THROUGH THE SACRIFICE OF THE LAMB THAT GOD HIMSELF HAS PROVIDED!!! Every action of the world is the other side of that coin in that everything that the world has done to persecute Jesus has all contributed to the completion of GOD’S PLAN even though they had acted “unintentionally” and with evil intent! The world gives Satan much more credit than deserved and we fail to see in our daily lives that we are guilty of betraying Jesus in our own way because we do not see God’s Plan in our lives — Jesus expressed the importance of believing in God’s Plan as He said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24) Therefore as we study the events that unfold at this Historic Passover, let us PRAISE GOD that He has provided GRACE for a lost and dying world and each generation “betrays” God’s Only Begotten Son but receives MERCY instead of JUDGEMENT because we believe that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

NOVEMBER 18 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 18  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Blessed be the Name of Jesus, Name above all names, Lord of all lords, the Prince of Peace, the Son in whom the Father is well pleased and who the Father admonishes us: “Listen to Him”!!! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus … my Lord and my Salvation, may all that I do be a Glory to You and Honor Your Great Name, the only Name which can be called upon by a sinner for salvation and the only Name to bestow Mercy and Grace on the humble and contrite heart that repents and seeks the Peace that can only be found by following Your Ways and entering the Narrow Gate!   AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus announced that “…the Son of Man will be delivered up…” (Matthew 26:2) anointed with “…fragrant oil…for [His] burial…(Matthew 26:12) and then Matthew documents how Jesus was betrayed: “Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?’ And they counted out to [Judas] thirty pieces of silver.” (Matthew 12:14-15) There is a Deep Lesson on the Sovereignty of God in these two verses that is a very revealing insight to both God and mankind! This Deep Insight in Matthew 12:14-15 is always overlooked as is the same insight found in Job 1:8 and Job 2:3 in which God initiates a conversation with Satan. “Then the LORD said to Satan…” (Job 1:8) and again, “Then the LORD said to Satan…” (Job 2:3) and our first worldly question is “What is God doing talking to the devil?” When we read the passage in Matthew 12:14-15 — we mistakenly give the devil credit again as our worldly misguided wisdom tells us that Judas Iscariot is possessed by the devil and it is the devil making Judas betray Jesus!  The Deep Truth of God in both these passages is simply that GOD IS IN CONTROL!!! In the book of Job we tend to look at the suffering of Job and in the passage in Matthew where Judas accepts 30 pieces of silver we focus on the suffering of Jesus on the cross because of the “betrayal” but in both instances we miss the Sovereignty of God and we never consider that the Suffering of Job and the Betrayal of Jesus was Planned by God —“before the foundation of the earth” (see Revelation 13:8 and 1 Peter 1:20) — with the Ultimate Purpose found in John 3:16 — these are not random attacks by the devil, they are scripted responses to the plan of God to bring Salvation to mankind!!! Satan was approached by God and asked to consider Job and through Job’s suffering we see that there was nothing Satan could do to Job that God could not make good in Job’s life and we see in the Crucifixion that there is nothing the world can do to the living that God cannot turn into His Glory. Satan took his best shot at the Cross and convinced the world to crucify the very Son of God but God proved His Sovereignty by raising Jesus the third day and Jesus revealed the cross was the culmination of God’s Plan when Jesus declared from the cross “It is Finished!!!”  Yet though Jesus was betrayed by His own, beaten beyond recognition, crucified, dead and buried, the Power of God and His Supreme Sovereignty over Life and Death was demonstrated on the Third Day when God Resurrected His Only Begotten Son in victory over the best that Satan and the evil world could come up with!!! God has ALWAYS HAD A PLAN FOR THE GOOD OF MAN and Satan is powerless ——— the TRUTH OF GOD is that Satan cannot do anything without God’s approval!  Satan cannot thwart God’s Plan of Salvation because the devil knew that he was totally defeated when he heard Jesus cry from the cross “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which Matthew translates as “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46) Can you imagine Satan at Golgotha first giving high fives to his demons when God’s Son, hanging on the cross, shedding His last drop of blood was asking from that cross why the Father had forsaken His Only Begotten Son?!?! That scene of the jubilation of Satan is what the world makes us see, as we see the suffering of Job at the hand of Satan, and as we see Christ dying a cruel death because Satan made Judas betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver ——— BUT GOD HAS A PLAN ——— and when one looks at GOD’S PLAN through the eyes of GOD’S GRACE and is not blinded by the lies of Satan and the deception of worldly desires we can see that God is in CONTROL and that everything is GOING ACCORDING TO GOD’S PLAN!!! I can imagine that Satan was in the midst of a high fives when God let Satan see the TRUTH that God had planned for Judas to betray Jesus who was INNOCENT and that JESUS WOULD SHED HIS INNOCENT BLOOD AS AN ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE FOR THE REMISSION OF SIN and now that God had gone so far as to abandon Jesus on the cross to accomplish HIS PLAN OF SALVATION that Satan knew that JESUS WAS THE VICTOR AND NOT THE VICTIM!!! God had already demonstrated the POWER of LIFE OVER DEATH and at that moment Satan KNEW that what Jesus had stated on several occasions leading up to the cross would become a reality and in only THREE DAYS God would RESURRECT HIS SON from the GRAVE AND DEATH_——— AND IT WAS ALL PLANNED!!! “What about you — do you believe God is that powerful?” 

NOVEMBER 17 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 17  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer   

JESUS, my Savior, the One who died for my sin and clothed me in His Righteousness that even though I am guilty and vile, by Your Precious Blood I am washed clean of my iniquities and stand blameless before the Father. Lord Jesus, why You would choose to suffer on that cruel cross for a worm such as I is beyond my mortal comprehension but then Your ways are higher than my ways and Your thoughts higher than my thoughts for which I am grateful that You have promised to never leave me nor forsake me — I pray to be centered in Your Will and always in Your Word, forgive me for my daily shortcomings and keep me safe and secure on the Rock!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus now has two days left before He must endure the cross as the Passover Lamb and having just announced that He will be “delivered up” by the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders “to be crucified” at the Passover,  Jesus is now giving other signs that His Death and Burial is imminent as Matthew records in his Gospel that “…when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.” (Matthew 26:6-7) There is in this passage about a woman coming to Jesus a Lesson for our modern day society if we study the reactions of those that observed the woman pouring the oil on His head. Matthew records, “But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant…” (Matthew 26:8) !!! If we look at our modern society today we can see that “indignation” is the reaction of those that have supported taking God out of our government against those that are calling for our society to return to honoring God; for never in the history of this great nation of America has Jesus and His followers been so persecuted and our laws so blatantly anti-God! When I observe those that are so adamant about removing God entirely from our schools and government, their calling for the “separation of church and state”, and their attitude toward those that would dare oppose them, their attitude can only be described as “indignant”!!! Jesus corrected those that opposed the woman and her actions toward Him as He explained her motive: “For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial.” (Matthew 26:12) So just after Jesus tells His followers that He “will be delivered up to be crucified” He then goes to Bethany and is there anointed with “fragrant oil for [His] burial” and yet it seems like His disciples have “ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see” and that is exactly the same case as our modern society having the record of His Death, Burial, and Resurrection but we still refuse to see the Truth that God has given the world His Only Begotten Son as an Acceptable Sacrifice for the Remission of Sin as we blindly refuse to step into the Light from the darkness of this world in which we are told by our “chief priests, scribes, and elders” {collectively the modern American government} that Jesus deserves to be “crucified” and removed from our society altogether!!! The series of events that take place in these next two days before Jesus submits His Innocence to the cross for the sins of the guilty, is of eternal consequence so let us study carefully each event so that we can understand that Jesus has died on the Cross and defeated Death and the Grave for ALL sinners and we can better understand His next Spiritual Question, “What! Could you not watch with Me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40) Personally this scripture tells me to “WAKE UP” and join Jesus in praying for our lost and dying world that is blinded by the darkness of sin and evil!!!  

NOVEMBER 16 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 16  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Lord and Redeemer, let every word from my lips be filled with praise and thanksgiving for the One who suffered and died for me! Lord I thank You that even when I was lost so deep in my sin that I could not find my way through the darkness that Your Light and Your Love brought me back to Your Way! Lord forgive me of my many shortcomings and keep my heart focused on Your Will and not my will which so often goes the way of the world and worldly desires. Praise, Glory, and Honor, Truth, and Life are Yours and I can only be thankful that You are Gracious to us in spite of our many iniquities and I am also thankful that because of Your Great Compassion You shower Your Mercy on a faithless and perverse generation, help me Lord with my unbelief.     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has announced that He was to be “delivered up to be crucified” (Matthew 26:2) and now He has only two days left before the prophecy of the Great Sacrifice of the Passover Lamb of God is fulfilled. Jesus throughout His Ministry has Taught the way of life we are to live in order that we may “inherit the kingdom of Heaven”!   Jesus has painted a very clear picture of what the future of the unbeliever is as well as warning that “all the nations” will be judged — either we have chosen to “believe” and follow the Great Shepherd to the Kingdom of Heaven where the believer will find “green pastures and still waters” or we will be separated out as “goats” during the Final Judgement when God “divides the sheep [believers] from the goats [unbelievers]” (Matthew 25:32)  Jesus illustrated the punishment very graphically as He said that at the Final Judgement the “King” will declare to the unbelievers, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…and the [unbeliever] will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous [believers] into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41,46) The Lesson to be learned from the “sequence” of Jesus Teaching about the Final Judgement where the “righteous” inherit the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life and the unrighteous are cursed to a “everlasting punishment” that immediately Jesus announces He will “be crucified” which is the same as when at the beginning of creation God recognized the problem of darkness and lack of purpose in the world in Genesis 1:2 “the earth was without form, and void and darkness was on the face of the deep…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said , ‘Let there be Light’” (Genesis 1:2-3).  Jesus, The Son of God, has recognized the problem that “darkness” and sin have blinded the unrighteous and He is fulfilling God’s command to “let there be Light” as Jesus knows that He must execute God’s Plan of Salvation and must suffer and die for the sins of the world as Jesus Sheds His Precious Blood when He is “crucified” though He is Innocent!!! Jesus knows that His Death is The Plan of Salvation for all mankind for He has repeatedly announced that God will “raise Him” on “the third day”! As we look at these last “two days” before that Most Blessed Event of the Sacrifice of God’s  Passover Lamb that we should study carefully these last Words and Lessons of the Chosen One. Therefore let us look at the sequence of events leading up to when on the Cross that Jesus “yielded up His Spirit” (Matthew 27:50) for if we study “how and why” Jesus died, we will declare as did those who watched Him die, “Truly this [IS] the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54) 

NOVEMBER 15 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 15  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer   

JESUS, Lord You have taken our lost souls out of the darkness and have shown us the Light of Truth through Your Holy Words and those Words from You have dispelled the worldly demons that have possessed us. Lord as I continue my walk with You I pray now for the growth of my Faith and Witness that I may share Your Light with those that are themselves walking in the darkness and the demonic lies that the world calls “the new truth?”. Lord Jesus, Your Word is Life, and only Your Word can take our hearts that have been hardened by the lies of this world and clean and renew our deceitful hearts as King David prayed “Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10)       AMEN

NOVEMBER 15  THE JESUS QUESTIONS

[POSTED BY LANNY LEWIS].      JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40).    Jesus has just announced, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” (Matthew 26:2) which sets the scene very well for us. Jesus and His disciples are in Jerusalem for the Passover which for the Jews is the Holiest of Feasts as they remember God delivering Israel from their bondage in Egypt through the prophet Moses. The Passover centers around the killing of the Passover lamb in memory and remembrance of the Death Angel “Passing Over” all who had obeyed God’s instructions and had killed the lamb and put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and all who were inside the house covered by the blood were saved, and all who had not followed God’s instructions perished that night. Now Jesus has announced that there are only “two days” remaining before He is “delivered up to be crucified” and even with all the prophecies pointing to this Most Historic Event in the entire course of human history, in Jerusalem, at Passover, and Jesus having demonstrated Himself to be the Son of God, those that had been with Him failed to see that Jesus Himself was the Lamb of God as John the Baptist had declared. Everyone that had been with Jesus and had heard Jesus say that He would be killed in Jerusalem and on the “Third Day” that He would be “resurrected from the dead” should have understood that Jesus IS the Passover Lamb and that it was through the Shedding of His Innocent Blood that the sins of a fallen world could be forgiven. God was giving the Ultimate Gift of His Only Begotten Son and in just “two days” that Historic Event would take place and Jesus would proclaim with His last breath on the cross, “IT IS FINISHED”. Once and for all, the Blood of the Lamb will be shed for the remission of sin and God’s Plan of Salvation will be in place for all mankind, God having done His Part and now all we have to do is take the Shed Blood of Jesus and apply it to our hearts so that we can “pass from death unto life” (John 5:24) If the disciples who had been walking with Jesus had missed it at the Passover in Jerusalem it is understandable that 2000 years later we who have been walking in darkness have missed it also, but it doesn’t change the Historic Fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins! God’s Plan of Salvation is firmly in place so we should follow His instructions and apply the Blood of the Lamb of God to our lives and the Death Angel will PASSOVER us and we can claim the Abundant Life promised to the Believer!  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) … and the Good News: “IT IS FINISHED”!!!!!!

NOVEMBER 14 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)

 NOVEMBER 14  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#32 “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”  (Matthew 26:40)

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer   

JESUS, Lord and my Savior, all my praise is Yours for You alone are Worthy of praise. Lord You have showered more blessings on me than I deserve for I know that I have nothing with which I can repay my “sin-debt” to God so my prayer is “Have Mercy on me a sinner”. Lord I can only place myself at Your Mercy and pray that when I am judged before God that He will look upon the Blood Bought Righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, sacrificed for all my sins and all the sins of the world! Lord I believe You GAVE Your Life for mine and in Your Death Only is Life Eternal for all who do BELIEVE!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has been Teaching His disciples all things that they should know in order that they could in turn teach His Truth to a lost and dying world and now Jesus is in Jerusalem for His Final Passover where  the prophecy of “The Suffering Servant” will be fulfilled and the Lamb of God will be sacrificed and fulfill what Abraham had stated to his son Isaac, “And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.’” (Genesis 22:8) It is significant as we study the last two Jesus Questions (JQ#32 & JQ#33) that we keep in perspective that Jesus culminates His public ministry during the Passover in Jerusalem as the Lamb of God and that as His last drop of Innocent Blood was shed at Calvary that His final Words were “IT IS FINISHED.” (John 19:30)! So let us look at the last two days leading up to the culmination of all prophecy of the Messiah, God’s Chosen One, and His Purpose on earth as we read, “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, ‘You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.’” (Matthew 26:1-2) Jesus had just wrapped up His Teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven and the Final Judgement when Jesus had stated clearly that at the “Final Judgement” that “All nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats…then the King will say to those on His right hand, ’Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’” (Matthew 25:31-34) and then Jesus lists those things that the “King” is pleased with that the disciples asked Jesus when they were given the opportunity to do those things for Him and Jesus answered them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do [these things] to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” (Matthew 25:45) therefore Jesus is Teaching His disciples that they are to do for others all the things Jesus had showed by His Example as the way to live our lives giving sacrificially to others, especially to “the least of these”! Jesus has just announced how we should treat others and then Jesus moves on to fulfilling His Purpose on Earth as He announces that in “two days is the Passover” and brings the disciples attention to His Final Act of Obedience to His Father as Jesus says, “…the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” (Matthew 26:2) The reaction to this announcement by Jesus is prophetic to America’s response over 2000 years later as Matthew records, “Then the chief priest, the scribes, and the elders of the people …plotted …[against] Jesus by trickery [to] kill Him.” (Matthew 26:3-5) Can you not see that the main issue in America today is that our government and the majority of our leaders and lawmakers are offended by the crucifixion of Jesus and His Resurrection and they have “plotted” to “kill Him [and His Teachings]” by removing prayer from our schools, by forbidding God in the government (Separation of Church and State), and by passing laws (Abortion) that make taking life from the unborn “legal”!?!  After all, Jesus had just Taught that what we do to the “least of these” that we are doing it “to Him” and if we kill the unborn then by God’s definition we are killing Jesus His Only Begotten Son!!! Jesus had mentioned the reward of protecting the innocent as inheriting the kingdom but He ended that Lesson by listing the punishment of those that harm the innocent when He said, “And these [that harm the innocent] will go away into everlasting punishment…” and the rewards of those that protect them are, “…but the righteous [enter] into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46) It goes beyond all logic to conceive that God would reward with “eternal life” those that choose to end the life of the unborn, for surely the unborn qualify as the “least of these”!?!?!?!?!?!  As always, Jesus gives us the choice and He has provided the Perfect Example so you must ask yourself, “How have I been treating “the least of these”????