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

JQ#21  “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)

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 am I silly for assuming that you have never worried about “paying taxes” or “getting ahead”?