JANUARY 02 THE JESUS QUESTIONS Introduction-02: Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#33 (Matthew 1:1 thru 3:17)

 JANUARY  02  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   Introduction-02: Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#33  (Matthew 1:1 thru 3:17)

LIVING FOR JESUS   Daily Prayer    

JESUS, we pray as You instructed us to pray: “Our Father who is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread…” (Matthew 6:11) and we have such confidence in Your Daily Provisions for us that we will proclaim as did King David, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want…” (Psalm 23:1) Lord Jesus we come humbly before You each morning to start our day knowing that You ARE what You say You ARE: You Lord Jesus ARE “The Way, the Truth, and the Life…” (John 14:6) 

Lord we cannot know Your Truth on our own without “Faith” in Your Holy Word and “Trusting” that the “Way” that You have so Graciously Promised to daily lead us will produce “Abundant Life” — Lord we know that You are good to us because You choose to Love us in spite of ourselves and we thank You and give You praise. Lord I pray that You and Your Holy Spirit will move me and my selfish desires out of the darkness and into YOUR LIGHT!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus is a Name that is unlike any other name in history and this blog seeks to discover the TRUTH of Jesus because there are some very bold and “miraculous” claims associated with the Name of Jesus in the Holy Bible! The challenge of this blog is not to provide “proof” because this blog does not seek to be neither the “judge” nor the “jury” but rather this blog is simply a common ordinary, everyday “Joe” that takes the “witness” stand and with my left hand planted firmly on the Holy Bible and my right hand raised toward the heavens I proudly proclaim before all men, “I swear to tell the TRUTH, the whole TRUTH, and nothing but the TRUTH, so help me God!” I seek no personal secular gain but seek desperately for Spiritual guidance to live my life in “peace” and in the many years that I have been searching for a “shelter in the storm” I have learned that when you find that unexpected umbrella that it is smart to open it up and let it protect you from the rain. I stand before you and say that I did not expect to find TRUTH in any particular place, person, or philosophy because all my previous expectations and explorations of places where I “just knew” that TRUTH could be found had landed me in some very peculiar predicaments! My “witness” that I share in this blog is a daily journal started in 2001 and has continued to the present that is the results of the reality of applying the TRUTH that I found in a book called the Holy Bible to my daily life — and I can document through that daily journal of my journey seeking TRUTH that by following God’s instructions found in the Holy Bible I have avoided personal spiritual disaster and I know that my “deliverance” came not because of anything that I have done! My personal efforts are all selfish in nature and have always landed me in some form of trouble from which the TRUTH of GOD always has to rescue me! The Bible then has given me confidence that the Holy Scriptures are the Inspired Word of God and that the Holy Scriptures are designed to reveal The TRUTH of GOD. In my life and my personal experience, the TRUTH that I have discovered in the Holy Bible has been constant and it consistently produces successful results in my personal life when I follow the TRUTH found in God’s Word. This blog then does not look to “prove” that the Word of God is infallible, this blog is simply to document how in my personal life the Word of God has proved Itself to me to be infallible in the results the WORD OF GOD produces in my personal physical and spiritual life and I challenge you to answer for yourself the question posed by a man who was desperately seeking answers in his life, “What is truth?”. Take any book or any philosophy and search for the TRUTH within that book or philosophy and when you apply what is proclaimed by that book or philosophy to be the “truth” to your own life, you must then “test” your newly discovered “truth”: Ask yourself “Is this ‘truth’ actually making an improvement in my personal life?” The success or failure will be determined by what you “believe” and you must ask yourself and respect yourself by answering honestly this very personal question: “Am I willing to bet my life, my soul, and my eternity on this newfound ‘truth’ ?” The world was telling me loudly and rudely “You can find ‘TRUTH’ without God” — but Reality is: GOD IS TRUTH!!!  CONCLUSION: NO GOD = NO TRUTH!!! I close with the words of a famous country song: “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”  Remember, “You are only ‘lying to yourself and living the lie’ if you are not believing in and living your life through the TRUTH as TRUTH proves itself TO YOU BY THE FRUIT IT PRODUCES IN YOUR DAILY LIFE AND DOCUMENTED THROUGH YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ———  ONLY YOU KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY BELIEVE!!!!

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The PATRIOT’S PULPIT

JANUARY 2

Comment: 1/2/24 Tuesday 4:58A -  One of the main issues that is affecting literally every individual’s life is the determination of “TRUTH” itself. What has happened to our culture since the advent of mass communication is that since the advent of radio and TV reaching “the masses”, our very internal ways of processing “TRUTH” has been modified. For example the “source” of “truth” for our generation living in the year 2024 varies very dramatically and therefore our perception of “truth” varies proportionally to the “source” each person consumes and the results of what each individual considers to be “truth” is relevant to the “source”. This is where the problem with the world exists in this generation of mass media because each “source” claims to be “truth” and as individuals we have been “conditioned” to believe whatever comes from major networks because everyone says the same thing and there is no way from someone from Kansas the “verify” the “truth” being reported from the Middle East. 

Last year as the talking heads were talking about CO2 emissions and “cow farts” the conclusion was that “farms” were harmful and when real farmers made the point that farms are where food comes from, a member of Congress made the comment that we don’t need farms because we have grocery stores! Our society is dependent on farmers for food and yet our government has people representing us that have no idea where food comes from. We need to establish some “standard” or “minimum requirement” for the people we elect and make sure that our government is for we the people and govern our resources and better allocate them to support the taxpayer. The government needs to have a higher purpose than taxation and regulation of hard working Americans and therein lies the “rub” — who decides what is a “higher purpose” and what do you use as a source for TRUTH? 

I lived the first 18 years of my life in a small Texas town and was raised in a large family where everyone either grew their own food are worked hard to provide for the family, we all lived the same TRUTH and it was always confirmed by God’s Holy Word. There were no TVs and there was no question about “right and wrong” and everyone grew up and got along because we all lived TRUTH in our daily lives. It wasn’t until I went off to college in Bid D (Dallas, Texas) that I was exposed to other “opinions” of what someone declared as “my truth” and that’s when I noticed that people that didn’t have the Bible as their source of “Truth” had to depend on opinions and commentary from total strangers to tell them what is “TRUTH”?!? You can bet that if someone is getting paid a lot of money to sit in front of a microphone that they are not concerned about “TRUTH” as much as they are concerned about their “paycheck” and little by little our generation has become conditioned by the search for “profit” and are much more concerned about “treasures” than “TRUTH”. 

We must take a step back and reevaluate  our “sources”, our “resources” and the simple “allocation” of “TRUTH”.  Today’s scripture really focused on Genesis 1:4-5  “God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” From reading the Bible we can see that at least from Day 1 people knew the difference between Day and Night (and dark and LIGHT)! John 1:4-5 tells us the spiritual significance of knowing the difference: “In [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Without God’s WORD there is no way to know what TRUTH really is. 

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