JANUARY 23 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#01 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?” (Matthew 5:13)

 JANUARY  23  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#01 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?” (Matthew 5:13)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer   

JESUS, Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Master, Teacher — what joy it is to know that the One holding our Eternity in His Hands deserves such Divine and eloquent titles. Lord I wake to the thought that You have given me yet another day and through the strength that Your Grace has imparted to me the possibilities of my future are limitless. Jesus, You Teach and Guide us in Your Ways and we know that through the knowledge that You give we can know the Father and we are assured that if we walk in Your Way that the path leads us to Eternal, Unbroken Fellowship with God Himself! 

What glorious thought that time and death will not hold sway over us as we enter into Your Kingdom and have all of Eternity ahead of us, a Blessed Eternity  free from the bondage of sin … Forgive me, a sinner in the flesh — I am longing for the day I can stand before You in Spirit and in Truth at the Final Judgement and be judged not on my righteousness but on the Righteousness of the Son of the Living God, even my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself!      AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS 

JESUS began His Ministry by going on a “field trip” which firmly established His “Purpose and Credentials” of being God’s Messiah by experiencing first hand the main problem Jesus was sent to earth to resolve — mainly the big issue in everyone’s life is having to learn how to be “in the world” but resist the temptation to be “of the world”! 

Matthew writes about this “field trip” Jesus took at the start of His Earthly Ministry thusly: “Then [immediately after being baptized by John in the Jordan] Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” (Matthew 4:1-3) 

This is a Divinely inspired passage by Matthew because it completely exposes the Main Truth of God needed by every individual and gives us an “example” of what to look for and how to handle it once we find ourselves in this circumstance — it is guaranteed that each one of us will encounter such a circumstance somewhere along the way on our Spiritual Journey! I say this because the first statement is, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit” so it is obvious that if Jesus came to be an “example” for us and to teach us how to react to certain circumstances in our daily life, then it is logical to assume that if the Spirit led Jesus “into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” that it would be prudent for us to prepare for that “experience” on our own “Spiritual” journey by expecting to find ourselves in “the wilderness” and to encounter “temptation”! 

The best way to prepare for any circumstance, and especially if we know with certainty that we will be “tempted by the devil” is to listen to the ONE that has gone before us and has successfully resolved every circumstance that we will find ourselves in at some point on our personal “Spiritual Journey”! 

We would not be so foolish as to go on a great journey into a wild and unknown land without making necessary preparations and to use an “experienced guide” to show us how to avoid the pitfalls and dangers that we are sure to encounter on our way — so why do we foolishly think we can make it through life without “The Guide” that has experienced VICTORY over Life, Temptation, and Death? It is written of Jesus: 

“For we do not have a [Guide] who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet He did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) 

If I am going to have to face “the devil” and I have “to be tempted” by the one that seeks to “devour my soul”, then I want to have as my guide the One that is “The Guide” and has VICTORY over the world, sin, temptation, the devil, and death itself to lead me on my Spiritual Journey!   

We are very fortunate to have “The Guide” for our Spiritual Journey and we also have the “Ultimate Guide Book” (the Holy Bible) to read for ourselves the “experiences” of “failures” and “pitfalls” of all those that refused to follow “The Guide” and the “successes” of those that listened to Him!!! On my embarking on my Spiritual Journey I obtained a copy of the “Ultimate Guide to Life” and in reading it through and through I have been very aware of certain passages that are written in “Red Letters” in my (Guide Book) copy of the Scofield Study Bible and those “Red Letter” passages are the ones that contains Statements and Advice that Jesus, the Master Life-Guide, spoke to help us on our Spiritual Journey. 

Jesus uses “Questions” to point us to special “points of interest” along our journey. The Spirit led me to a thought one day while reading in my Bible — I was to go through the New Testament Gospel of Jesus Christ written by Matthew and read through all the times Jesus is quoted (designated by the “Red Letters”) and to study each Question that Jesus asked as I came to it. 

There are not that many “Red Letter” passages so when the Master Teacher who has Infinite Knowledge and Understanding asks a “Question” then we should pay attention! The plan for the rest of this blog then is to identify those “Questions” that Jesus asked, study the context surrounding the circumstance, and let the Holy Spirit enlighten our consciousness to that “Lesson” that JESUS the Master Teacher is trying to Teach us by making us stop and think about what He has asked, then meditate on each “JESUS Question” until we can give Him an “honest” answer. 

This exercise will not be a quick read and it will take months (the rest of the year in fact) to answer each of the 33 JESUS Questions the Holy Spirit challenged me to answer in this blog and share them with others seeking TRUTH on their personal SPIRITUAL JOURNEY— but I encourage you to take the time and accept the challenge because Jesus had a reason for asking these Questions and I know He has a very good reason for letting the Holy Spirit challenge each reader to give their own answer for each of “The JESUS Questions” — and your own “honest” answer must be given directly to Jesus Himself!! 

This blog is designed by the Holy Spirit to be a One-on-one between the reader and JESUS CHRIST! 

The Plan then is to start by reading again from the beginning of Matthew and his introduction of Jesus Christ as Messiah and firmly establish in our minds that Jesus IS the Master Guide having the Authority and the Power of God to successfully lead us on our Spiritual Journey and to take us safely through all the pitfalls of life. Once we know that Jesus IS the Master Teacher and with what Authority He Teaches we can then with supreme confidence continue our Spiritual Journey. 

Let us begin our “RED LETTER SPIRITUAL JOURNEY with JESUS” by introducing the first JESUS Question — 

JQ#01 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?” (Matthew 5:13a) 

The first thought that struck me when I read this first JESUS Question is that Jesus is talking to all those that call themselves “Christians”, and the second thought that followed was an emotion of guilt and shame as I read the next statement Jesus made about salt: “… [tasteless salt] is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” (Matthew 5:13b) 

The JESUS Question JQ#01 about Christians being “the salt of the earth” and the immediate statement Jesus made about “salt” provoked an emotion that made me ask, “Is this what is happening in my spiritual life and I am being trampled emotionally underfoot by the world” and then I immediately prayed “Jesus, how do I fix it?”?!?! — my prayer was answered as soon as I continued reading the next few verses in my Guide Book where I found “encouragement and guidance” — for with the “Question” still lingering in my mind, the Master Teacher’s WORDS opened my understanding to the Answer that followed immediately after His Question! 

It is my prayer that this blog will do the same for you and that you will find these Eternal Life Answers from the Master’s Questions, asked by JESUS HIMSELF for each of our sakes! 

Why should we study The JESUS Questions???:

II Timothy 2:15 admonishes, “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

>>>my prayer was answered as soon as I continued reading<<< 

Selah

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1/23/24

THE PATRIOT’S PULPIT

Comment: 1/23/24 Tuesday 4:48A - Dear Patriot’s: I read yesterday an article that the Supreme Court “sided with Biden” and the Federal Government can cut the razor wire that Texas put up to stop illegals from crossing the border to protect Texas citizens and Texas communities! This is CRITICAL and as Americans we should recognize that we are at the precipice our forefathers warned us about and why the wrote the constitution to protect “the states and the American citizenry” from big government. 

The fact that we have the Federal Government and an American State (Texas) having to take a “dispute” to the Supreme Court is a very dangerous situation because it announces on a national scale that the Federal Government is going to try and control the action of individual states which the last time this happened was what started our Civil War after Lincoln was assassinated because he had tried to take control of America’s money supply from the Central Bankers (Federal Reserve)! 

The first “civil war” was not about slavery, the war was about who controls the money and here we are in 2024 facing the same problem! The Deep State that is in control of the Federal Government is trying to take total control of our money by doing away with cash altogether and make us have “digital I.D.s” which will basically enslave everyone through their new digital currencies which is very much like the “mark of the beast” because they will be in complete control of everyone’s bank account and they will be able to control who can buy and who can sell! 

The illegal immigrants crossing the border are to destroy American Nationalism and give the Federal Government total control of America. We are at the same point in America with the same issues and conditions and the group that opposes giving up America to foreign illegals are much like the group that opposed the original proposal of the Federal Reserve Central Banking system and ended up with a one-way ticket on the Titanic! The group that opposes the Central Bankers today and wants power given back to we the people by reducing the Federal Government power and dissolving the Federal Reserve Banking System established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1871 are the same group that is trying to secure our Southern borders and establish a new gold backed currency are the ones the Biden Administration has taken to the Supreme Court over this “razor wire” issue and if the Fed gets their way, America will find itself in another Civil War. 

The last President that gave us Silver Certificates to replace the Federal Reserve Fiat Debt backed currency was John F. Kennedy and we all know how that worked out. The battle is real and it is for the soul of America and if Americans do not protect American borders and American National Sovereignty then we are on the verge of losing it. 

The Federal Government and the puppet administration are NOT AMERICAN PATRIOTS and the fact that the Feds are facing off with Texas means that they are trying to take control of individual states and if the Feds win against Texas, the Feds will effectively created the UN-UNITED  States of America and The United States  must not be divided, division = Civil War and NO WAR IS GOOD! 

The time has come to choose a side and it looks like the same battle our founding fathers fought against Federal Control of States Rights. The result of that battle was our Constitution which gave us Freedom of Speech and the Second Amendment which gives us the right to protect ourselves. January 6th was the Feds taking away our Right to Free Speech and the Feds cutting razor wire on the Texas border is taking away a state’s right to protect themselves — we are on the verge of Civil War and the point that Ben Franklin made about the US being a “Republic if we can keep it”! I am not being an “alarmist” but I am a realist and I can read the “writing on the wall” — we are at the “crossroads” and its time to Stand Our Ground! 

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