JULY 11 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 11  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, You Lord have done all that could be done and there could be no greater expression of Love than the Gift that the Father gave to the world in the form of Self Sacrifice for the sake of others. Lord it will always be a Mystery why You became flesh and allowed Yourself to be tempted in the flesh in all ways that we are tempted in the world?!?  Why would the King of kings and Lord of lords humble Himself and allow His creation to crucify Him? Lord, instead of questioning “Why” would God choose this path for mankind to enter into eternity and unbroken fellowship with the Father, let me Lord give You Thanks, Praise, and Glory for without You showing us the Way, we would remain lost in our sin. Give us this day our daily bread — for Yours is the kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory FOREVER!!!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus IS the Master Teacher and being God He has Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom. Jesus used “His Mastery of Words” to Teach Lessons-within-a-Lesson and in this section in Matthew chapters 17 and 18 Jesus has already used two common everyday words that everyone understands — “fish” and “taxes” — simple little words BUT with our limited finite insight we would never put together in the way Jesus puts them together to Teach us a Lesson-within-a-Lesson and reveal God Himself! Jesus actually performed a miracle with Peter and a fish to explain the “Provisions” of God and while in the process of Teaching us about God’s Provisions for us, Jesus Taught us that God is not limited in His Power in any way and GOD IS the SUPREME POWER in the universe, and also that God has chosen to use that Supreme Power to take care of our daily needs by controlling circumstances in our daily lives to produce a miracle — these two words are “fish” and “taxes” and in only 4 verses (Matthew 17:24-27) Jesus reveals some amazing characteristics of God. If we look at the behavior of God in this passage and in reading the following passages in Chapter 18 we can learn Lesson after Lesson and could spend days just reading these passages and contemplating God and wonder “why” God would go through all the trouble to perform miracles in the first place, let alone understanding “how” God is able to perform miracles at all! Once you start thinking about the “Powers” of God you begin to wonder “Why” God cares about us at all, especially when He spends so much time Teaching us that we are sinners? The very definition of “sin” is “disobeying God” — so why would the Father God send His Only Begotten Son down to earth from heaven (where Jesus is a Third-Part of the Trinity of God) to give up His Divinity and Unlimited Power in heaven to be born flesh (John 1:14) and blood on the earth and dwell among a world that is so disobedient to God? Jesus spent His earthly life living a simple life, He did not hold any office of distinction, He did not have any earthly possessions, and He dedicated Himself to Teaching sinners how to solve their sin problem and the earthly life of Jesus was terminated by the Greatest Lesson ever Taught about God, “For [the Father] made [the Son] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in [Jesus].” (2 Corinthians 5:21) So why does Jesus spend so much time Teaching us that we are sinners — the answer is because His Mission was to teach us the “problem of our sin” and then present us with the “solution to the problem of our sin”— the successful resolution of our sin problem on earth will be rewarded with eternal fellowship with God in heaven, completely free from sin but if the problem of sin is not resolved in our lives, then the consequence of our sin will be to spend an eternity in “hell fire” where we will be forever separated from God who sent His Son to save us from that hell where we will always know that our eternal agony is because we chose to sin against God ——— if we reject God then by our own choice we will live eternally in a burning hell knowing it was our sin that separated us from God and it is that knowledge of our sin that is the fuel that causes the fires of hell to burn so hot!!! We cannot explain why “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1)  in the first place or why God allowed “sin” to enter into His Perfect Creation and certainly we can’t explain why God would send His Only Begotten Son to Sacrifice Himself on a cruel cross to pay the penalty for OUR SIN — but the real question is: “Now that you know that “Sin IS the Problem” and that “Jesus IS the Solution” what are you going to do about it, will you continue disobeying God and die in your sin and spend eternity separated from God or will you obey God and “Listen to Jesus” and accept the Gift of Eternal Life of Fellowship with God?”