MARCH 20 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#10 “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?” (Matthew 10:29)

 MARCH 20  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#10 “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?” (Matthew 10:29)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer   

JESUS, Lord I praise You for Your Faithfulness — I am amazed when I read a prayer lifted up to You (or as Pastor Steve says “spread it before the LORD”) that I wrote in 2004 and realize that many years after the prayer request was made and even though the answer to that prayer request took several years to be answered and arrived in a most unexpected “Way”, that the answer is definitely the answer to that specific 2004 prayer and is Your Divine Way, answered in Your Perfect Timing — “Answered Prayers” like this are beyond our expectations and imaginations and is the perfect example of “waiting upon the LORD”! This “looking back” at prayers lifted years ago and were faithfully answered definitely “grows my Faith”. I am also learning that I am to lift my prayer to You and then “wait on the Lord” without me telling You “How” to answer my prayer in the “Way” I think it should be answered but to “trust God” and “Your Perfect Way and Perfect Timing”!       AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS uses a simple sparrows and coin Question as a contrast to a very serious set of commands that He uses to instruct His disciples how to go out into the world and share the Word of God with a lost and dying world, therefore the simple Question should be considered in its entire serious context. So far we have noted that there are some very serious instructions being given for a very serious task Jesus is assigning to His new disciples. A reading of the verses Matthew 10:1-28 are instructions Jesus gave to His disciples as He was equipping them with “tools” to successfully share the Gospel with the world and Jesus made it very clear that this “sharing” is for a very serious purpose and uses a vocabulary of serious terms and and lists  “Eternal Consequences” such as “Eternal life in heaven or Eternal damnation in hell”. Jesus also showed the seriousness of understanding that our lives have a “physical” value and a “spiritual” value and that the ability of men to “kill” the “body” was inconsequential to the ability of God to “destroy” the “soul”. The world has told us the greatest thing to “fear” is our physical death but God reminds us that our physical lives are but a vapor and our bodies come from dust and at our death our physical bodies return to the earth from where it came. But of greater seriousness, our “soul” which God through His Holy Spirit made “eternal” returns to the Creator of our souls when the “physical body” dies. At the time of our physical death, the “body and soul” are separated and our “Eternal Soul” returns to God. Jesus Taught this same Lesson to the most learned man in Jerusalem and a leader of the Jerusalem synagogue in John 3:1-21 as Jesus tells Nicodemus “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) and again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5) Jesus then tells Nicodemus that we have two births: (1) a “physical birth” which is of our earthly father and (2) a “Spiritual birth” which is from our heavenly “Father” as Jesus tells Nicodemus plainly, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Therefore when Jesus is training His disciples to share His Gospel, He asks the sparrow and copper coin Question to make us consider the “value” of our earthly “body” and the lessons of the “flesh” as compared to the “value” of our “soul” and the Lessons of the Spirit which contains “eternal life”. It is the “Choice” we make with our “Spirit” that has “Eternal Consequences”. Jesus gives us “Hope” because He also tells the disciples how to please God so that God will accept them in Heaven as Jesus tells the disciples: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 10:32) That is GOOD NEWS because we know the Father is “well pleased” with the Son and here the Son is telling us that He will accompany us to Heaven and present us Himself to “our Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Pleasing God is as simple as John 3:16 — read it for yourself and claim your promised eternal life!

PERSONAL TESTIMONY ON THE “WAR OF FLESH AND SPIRIT”:

NOTE: 3/19/17 JOE VEAL, FOUNDER OF UTURN MINISTRIES IN MALAWI, SPOKE AT CALVARY ON ROMANS 7:13-25 “THE WAR OF THE FLESH AND SPIRIT” AND WHEN I WAS IN MALAWI GOD WORKED “THE MIRACLE IN MALAWI” THROUGH ME AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SPOKE THESE PASSAGES FROM JOHN 3:3,5-6 THROUGH ME TO A DYING MAN (WHO HAD JUST DRANK POISON TRYING TO KILL HIMSELF)!!!  THE HOLY SPIRIT PULLED DEATH OUT OF THE POISONED MAN AND THE HOLY SPIRIT ALSO PULLED DEATH OUT OF ME IN THE PROCESS!!!  THE FACT THAT I HAD BEGUN A “WAR” BETWEEN MY FLESH AND SPIRIT ON 3/18/17 SATURDAY AND JOE VEAL SPEAKING FROM ROMANS CHAPTER 7 ON 3/19/17 SUNDAY SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THAT “WAR”, AND THEN ON 3/20/17 MONDAY THIS JESUS QUESTION IS ABOUT THE WORDS JESUS USED TO HEAL THE SUICIDAL MAN IN MALAWI FROM JOHN 3 ARE 3 “CONFIRMATIONS” FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT ON MY “WAR OF THE FLESH AND SPIRIT” AND ALLOWS ME THE FREEDOM TO MOVE ON IN SERVICE TO GOD — AS JOE SAYS FROM A PASSAGE IN ISAIAH — “HERE I AM, SEND ME”!!!