APRIL 20 THE JESUS QUESTIONS (Day 6) Summary Review of JESUS Questions JQ#01-01—JQ#13-07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34)

 

APRIL 20  THE JESUS QUESTIONS 

(Day 6) Summary Review of JESUS Questions 

JQ#01-01—JQ#13-07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34) 

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, as always, this time that I spend directly with You in the form of prayer is the most important part of my day. Lord Jesus, it is not always easy to look at the necessity to daily “pick up our cross and follow you” without a little worldly apprehension on our part but then it is Your Peace that makes me realize there is no other Name that we can call on for “Peace” — and it is Your Cross and us carrying our cross that brings  Your Peace into our daily life!  

Lord Jesus, only You have the Words of Eternal Life and we can say when we feel our cross is getting a little to heavy for us to bear — Lord Jesus I know I can do this if You will just help me — for You Lord carried Your Cross to the point of success that You could declare with Your dying breath, “It is finished”! 

O Lord Jesus, give me the strength to endure to the end of these earthly trials to where I to can finish my race with confidence in the Only Begotten of the Father and proclaim as I enter into Your Rest — “It is finished” and I can hear You say

 “Well done thy good and faithful servant!”.       

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus so far in this Summary Review of His first 13 JESUS Questions has Taught us in JQ#01 to consider our own personal responsibility to the Kingdom of God then with JQ#02 Jesus Taught us that we need God’s GPS for our journey to Him because whenever we stray off the path we just need to remember that the “Love of God” 

will never steer us wrong and 

will keep us on the “Straight-and-Narrow” path to the “Kingdom of God”. 

JQ#03 opened our eyes to God’s great Provisions for us and because He cares so much for us that we should “Trust God” in “all things” and we should not “worry” about any earthly things because the Heavenly Father has promised that He will take care of us because He has chosen to “Love” us!

Lesson 4  JQ#4   “What gives you the right to judge?”                   Matthew 7:1-6 

To keep things personal Jesus then Teaches us that just as we “Trust God” for our “physical” needs that we should also realize that God wants to take care of our “Spiritual” needs as well. 

In this review so far we have found that Jesus not only makes it personal with 

JQ#04 “What gives you the right to judge?” 

He also makes it serious as He warns us that our own worst enemy is ourselves as He emphatically uses the term “Hypocrite!” (Matthew 7:5). The fact that this is a personal issue is established when Jesus first states the problem:

 “JUDGE not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1)

 and then Jesus makes us aware that if we take on the personal responsibility to “judge others” then we will be held personally responsible for having “judged ourselves” in a like manner! Jesus declares the “Consequence” of us choosing to be the “judge” when He states:

 “For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matthew 7:2) 

When you think about the fact that God just told you that He was going to provide for you if you will “Trust Him” (in JQ#03) then why should we try to take 

God’s Job as “Judge of the Universe” away from Him? 

Indeed, why should we take all that responsibility of “judging others” on ourselves in JQ#04 — especially just after giving all our “worries” to Him in JQ#03? Jesus keeps us focused on the fact that if we are going to “Trust God” with “some things” that we should “Trust God in All things” for we are the created and He is the Creator; therefore, we should let Him “judge” others for He “knows-all-things” and can see everything from a Divine Perspective while we are sinners and at best our “judgement” will always have a degree of personal bias to it — so Jesus says the best way to prevent us “sinning” against God is to “not judge” others for we will be a “hypocrite” if we say we “Trust God” but do not let Him do His job. 

Jesus Teaches us with JQ#04 that we do not have the “right to judge others” because

 the “right to judge” belongs to God and God Alone! 

After all, why should we “Trust” 

a God that needs our help in deciding what is “Right or Wrong”?  

Once we start down the path of assuming for ourselves the responsibility designated to the Divine Creator then we will quickly find that we are unable to navigate through the “Infinite” with our severely limited “finite” intellect! 

Don’t you think the safest path is to

 

follow the route Jesus has already traveled 

and has Successfully reached His Divine Destination 

by following the True Way designated by God the Father?

APRIL 19 THE JESUS QUESTIONS (Day 5) Summary Review of JESUS Questions JQ#01-01—JQ#13-07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34)

 

APRIL 19  THE JESUS QUESTIONS 

(Day 5) Summary Review of JESUS Questions 

JQ#01-01—JQ#13-07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34) 

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, it is beyond my understanding “why” You and the Father would “Love” a world of lost sinners such as myself. 

Lord Jesus, I praise You for this “knowing” that the Holy Spirit has imparted to me that says to me that for my “spiritual” health I do not need to understand or explain “why” You “Love” me but it is enough to KNOW WITH CERTAINTY that You “Love” me and that You demonstrated that “Love” by Your death on the Cross, the Father has also demonstrated His “Love” towards us in that He RESURRECTED You from the grave!

 Lord Jesus, my prayer is simply to let my life reflect that Supreme Love with which 

I KNOW THAT I AM LOVED BY GOD!       

AMEN 

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus so far in His first 2 Lessons has taught us to be aware of our personal responsibility to our own eternity and to the Kingdom. Jesus then started us on our “Spiritual Journey” with the Primary Tool to accomplish Kingdom Work and that necessary tool to get to 

God’s Kingdom is God’s GPS system which is the “LOVE OF GOD”.

Lesson 3  JQ#3    “What good is worry or ‘who cares’?”               Matthew 6:25-34

Jesus then asked His 3rd Question to get us to fully appreciate the first two Lessons when He bluntly asks us “What good is worry?” and to help us keep the proper spiritual perspective on “worry” Jesus illustrates  the best of all reasons not to worry — Jesus tells us that 

everything we could possibly worry about has already been or will be taken care of by “The Father” 

that knows our every need! Jesus is illustrating another 

“Truth of God” 

by showing us that if we will take the “negative” which is “worry” and learn that we can exercise our “spiritual” muscle and make a “positive” out of the “negative worrying” by turning our “worry” into “Trusting God” then we are well on our way to understanding “Faith” and how to “grow” our Faith by Trusting in God! 

This very important Spiritual Lesson of “Trusting God” is the perfect companion to “Love” — and with our knowing that we have a personal responsibility to the Kingdom — and that 

God will provide everything we need 

to complete our “Journey to Eternity” with Him 

— and that our obligation is to 

“Love” as the Father “Loves” and to “Trust God” that He will provide our every need — then we will not “worry” but move expectantly towards our Eternity as we walk by “Faith” — 

“Faith” not in ourselves but 

“Faith in our Heavenly Father” and His desire for our good! 

This journey of “Faith” becomes our life as we worry less and less as we see day by day that God has provided for the lilies of the field and clothes them so beautifully!  We grow our “Faith in God” as we recognize that if God does such amazing things with birds and flowers and the sun, moon, and stars that it becomes obvious to even the most casual observer that God cares so much more about us!!! 

God confirmed His Love for us because He made us in His image! 

So we can answer with confidence that we do not need to “worry” because “God cares” about our lives! Jesus ends the Lesson with another beautiful summary of this Lesson on the Truth of God’s Love with a simple but powerful thought: 

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33) 

I know myself that when I realized that if God is going to add “all these things” to me simply because He desires to impart His Righteousness on me so that I can enter His Kingdom, then I am no longer 

“worried” about “all these things” and my “Faith in God” 

grows proportional to how successful I am in turning “worry about the world” into “trusting in the Goodness of God”! 

If you just stop and think about it in your own life, has the world or God provided for your daily bread? 

***After all, if we know bread comes from a seed, then isn’t the One who imparts life to the seed more important to our daily bread than the one who gathers the grain?***

APRIL 18 THE JESUS QUESTIONS (Day 4) Summary Review of JESUS Questions JQ#01-01—JQ#13-07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34)

 

APRIL 18  THE JESUS QUESTIONS 

(Day 4) Summary Review of JESUS Questions 

JQ#01-01—JQ#13-07 (Matthew 5:1 thru Matthew 12:34)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Glory and Honor to the Son of the Living God who “so loved the world” that the Father “willed” the Son to become “flesh and dwell among [the world the Father loved]”. 

The Son demonstrated His Love for the Father with the Ultimate Obedience to the Father as the Son became the Sacrificial Lamb for ALL the sins of “the world”. 

It was through this Great Sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary that all Glory and Honor is due the Son who demonstrated such “Love”, even our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus Taught us in Lesson 1 about our personal responsibility to the kingdom of God and now in Lesson 2 He begins to Teach us the “tools” that the Father will equip us with in order that we may promote His Kingdom:

Lesson 2  JQ#2    “What do you really know about Love?”          Matthew 5:43-48

The first precept that Jesus introduces is the concept of “True Love” and not the “love of the world” but the “Love of the Father” that is to reside within those that choose to follow Him. The importance of “Loving as the Father Loves” and as “Christ Loved the Church” is confirmed for His followers as Jesus states:

 “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) 

As Jesus Teaches Lesson 2 He also shows us glimpses of the Father and demonstrates that 

The Father and The Son are going to be The Perfect Examples of TRUE  LOVE and that before we are asked to “love others” 

we will first be loved by the Father and the Son. 

In the passage from John 13 we just read Jesus saying that we are to love 

“as I have loved you”

 and everyone knows John 3:16 

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” 

so it is no surprise that the first Lesson Jesus Teaches is our responsibility to the kingdom and in His 2nd Lesson Jesus Teaches us how to best represent the Kingdom of God by Teaching us about “The True Love of God”! 

Jesus confirms the importance of knowing how to “LOVE” when He states why we should emulate the

 Father’s Love “…that you may be sons [and daughters] 

of your Father in heaven…” (Matthew 5:45) 

Jesus further clarifies that we are to Love as the Father and the Son Love and not as the world loves because Jesus started the Lesson on Love with “You have heard it said…” and adds immediately, “But I say to you…” clearly warning us that the world will tell us wrongly how to love — for the 

only True Love comes from the Father and the Son 

who “first loved us” (1 John 4:19) 

and by Their Perfect Example we are to “love one another”. 

Jesus demonstrates that He has come to live His life as an example and that before Jesus asks us as His disciples to do anything, we will have both the Father and the Son to look to as “Perfect Examples” of how we are to live our lives. When we determine to

 “Love one another as God first Loved us” 

we will best promote the Father, the Son, and Their Kingdom. 

Jesus continued throughout His ministry to Teach His disciples about “Love” and we see the disciples in turn teaching “God’s Love” Lesson to others as we read the Apostle Paul writing to the Church in Corinth 

“And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three, 

but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13). 

It is only fitting that this Summary Review of Lesson 2 on God’s Love should end with a love statement from the disciple known as the “disciple that Jesus loved” and the disciple that wrote his entire Gospel on “Love” as John teaches some of his last lessons before his death on the island of Patmos in what is described as a “family letter” to “his little children” as John writes:

 “Beloved, if God so loved us, 

we also ought to love one another.”    (1 John 4:11)      

Could the importance of “God’s Love” be made any more Sincere and True 

than for the Father and the Son to live as examples of “Perfect Love” 

and to hold “Love” in such High Regard in Heavenly Places?