DECEMBER 21 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#1-33 SUMMARY-07 The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 DECEMBER 21  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#1-33 SUMMARY-07  The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ 

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer    

JESUS, today I pray, “I am Yours, save me” as was prayed by Martin Luther, a prayer that must have been a great glory to Your Name and a great time of “coming out of darkness” into the LIGHT of YOUR WORD! O Lord, there is a new ‘Spiritual Dark Ages’ for our nation as America continues down this disastrous course of “separation of church and state” and if America continues to drift from our faith in God, we will lose the religious freedom established by our Creator and acknowledged by our Christian forefathers. 

Lord we simply cannot allow Christ to be taken out of Christmas and let “Happy-Holidays-Gift-Buying” replace “Merry-Christmas-Gift-Giving” in our lives, especially in our schools and public places. Lord, I pray for the Holy Spirit to lead “believers in Christ” to do something about this evil and vile situation that is removing Your Name from so many things that have made our nation great.”  Like many Americans who have felt the the need for unity in Christ, my prayer is that Christ will be allowed back into our schools and public places and that as a nation that we will once again proclaim “IN GOD WE TRUST” and from a Joyous heart proclaim, “Peace on Earth — Merry Christmas to ALL”!!!!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has now been connected to 4 prophecies that point to Him as the Messiah and yet it is our “faith” that will actually seat Him on the “throne” of our heart!!! It is a simple TRUTH of this world that all the evidence in the world will not be sufficient to enlighten those worldly ones that want to trust in the “doctrines and traditions of man” and not the “commands of God”! Jesus adamantly demonstrated against the hypocrisy of abandoning God’s Light for man’s darkness throughout His earthly ministry and especially after making His “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. 

During the Passover Week Jesus was very specific as He is quoted as saying: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15) With statements like that from Jesus which attacked power hungry religious leaders of Israel and called them out with such great condemnation (and especially being called out like that in Jerusalem during the Passover Week) that they as “national leaders” would certainly not want Jesus to be confirmed as the Messiah for that would expose their greed for control of the people and would be Divine confirmation of them being “sons of hell”! 

That particular problem still exists today among people greedy for power that still refute the claim that Jesus is not the “Messiah” and they still today go so far as to say that the word “Messiah” has been defiled by translation ——— those believing that the “mashiach” (“the anointed one”) has not yet come to this earth even today argue that the “mashiach” (according to the traditions of men) is not “God” but that the “mashiach” is a “human” that will be a warrior king like David. 

Those dedicated to this “Messianic Idea in Judaism” base their arguments on arguments put forth in such writings as “Rambam’s 13 Principals of Faith” which are in their own words “the minimum requirements of Jewish belief” and when they refer to God’s Holy Scriptures these that are so dedicated to “Judaism” use the same prophets that declared the coming of the “Messiah” and “signs” of His Coming through their interpretation of the Scriptures, use those same prophets and Scriptures to claim that the Scriptures “prove” that Jesus is not the “mashiach”. It was this claim of their side  that the Scriptures prove Jesus who was standing before them fulfilling prophecy was not the Messiah, was the basis therefore for Jesus rightfully called them “hypocrites” for these misguided leaders claim to know the Scriptures better than God Himself!  

This is the exact same problem that Jesus questioned the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem who had sought out Jesus because of His “Works” (the “Works” that Jesus had done were “miraculous” by any definition) and when Jesus answered their question with a Question of His own, “Why do you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3) and called them “hypocrites” by referring to the prophet Isaiah: “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, and in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’” (Matthew 15:7-9) 

So if those that claim Jesus is not the Messiah do so by quoting “commandments of men” such as “Rambam’s 13 Principals of Faith” then I will let each of you make your own decision and review the “evidence” yourself, but each individual must still come to the same point of decision put forth by Joshua — “Choose this day whom you will serve!” (Joshua 24:15)