JULY 13 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 13  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, (From a song given to me by the Holy Spirit in 2003) 

“Jesus, Precious Jesus, Thank You, You took my sins away, 

and I want to thank You for all that You’ve done, 

so this is the prayer that I pray — 

Please grant it Lord that I may grow strong, 

yet give more than I take. 

Teach me to lean on Jesus my King 

and guide me each step that I take. 

In all that I do let Your Love Shine through,

 that lost sheep might find the way 

and come back Home to this Peace I’ve known 

— this is the prayer I pray.” 

 Praise to God from whom ALL Blessing flow, forgive me of my daily sins,

 and create in me a clean heart, O God!       

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus always gave us a Living Example of the Lessons He was Teaching

 and each Lesson reveals a 

Truth of God 

so that we may know who God is by knowing His Truth. 

I have always asked the question:

 “Couldn’t there have been some other way 

for our sins to be forgiven other than God 

having to send His Son to Sacrifice Himself for our sins?” 

There has been one answer that the Holy Spirit gives me 

and it is in the form of a question as my heart and soul hears:

 “Why do you question God?” 

When I stop and “think” about it, I come to the conclusion 

that instead of questioning God that I should look to see what 

Truth of God 

is revealed in the things that He does! 

So instead of asking 

“Why would God sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for my sin”

 I make this observation and I see that

 (TRUTH 1) the creator God who can do all things without my help

 has made a Divine Personal Decision to help those that 

He certainly doesn’t need any help from ——— and 

(TRUTH 2) not only does God help others who cannot repay Him 

for His Divine Help, He used His Most Precious Possession 

to accomplish His Desire to do “Good” for others, 

(TRUTH 3) God had no motivation to make His Decision 

except His Own Pure Character of Mercy 

(TRUTH 4) besides proving Himself to be a Merciful God, 

He also reveals that He is a Loving God for we know that our sin

 is nothing but rebellion against God and even though God Knows

 all things and Knows that we are undeserving of Love, 

God pours out His Divine Compassion on us and proves 

He is a Gracious and Compassionate God and finally 

(TRUTH 5) The fact that God would send His Son to die a cruel death

 for our sin proves that God is an “Unchanging” and “Just” God !!! 

In the beginning God said that disobedience to Him must be punished

 by death and my worldly thoughts say that 

“if I am the rule-maker and I am in charge of enforcing those rules 

then I can change the rule if I want to” ——— but 

God proves He is a GOD that GOD NEVER CHANGES 

and the rules apply to everyone and will be enforced fairly and justly — 

FOREVER — PROVING GOD IS 

ETERNALLY UNCHANGING AND UNEQUIVOCALLY JUST!

 

When we question God we are using the world’s standard 

of ever-changing priorities but 

when we observe God from the point of “Truth and Fairness” 

we see that God’s Moral Standard is the only True 

and Fair Standard by which all mankind 

should judge ourselves and others!  

By using God’s Unchanging Moral Standard 

we have confidence that God will judge everyone equally

 by the same fair standard which NEVER CHANGES, 

and we know His Standards NEVER change 

because God Himself NEVER CHANGES. 

So the Truth of God is that sin MUST be punished 

and the Compassion of God ——— 

(“For God so loved the world”)

 is demonstrated by His Grace towards sinners

 (“that He gave His only begotten Son”) 

and by providing Himself a Sacrifice for our sin problem 

(“that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish

 but have everlasting life.” John 3:16)

 and God goes the extra mile in that not only will we

 “not perish” 

but God rewards our 

“belief in His Only Begotten Son”

 with 

“everlasting life”! 

 

The fact that “sin” is a problem in the world is not what is being disputed

 by mankind, mankind just does not want to admit that “sin” is a problem 

that we are EACH personally responsible for! We refuse to admit

 that we cannot solve the sin-problem ourselves and that we must turn

 to God for the solution. 

This is God’s Plan of Salvation in a nutshell: 

God gave us Free Will but we used it poorly 

and chose to sin instead of following God 

and we ended up lost in our sin. 

Once lost in sin, we cannot see our way back to the

 TRUTH OF GOD 

and our selfish pride prevents us from asking God for directions.

 God however RESCUES us from our sin 

but in Honor of His 

Gift of Free Will 

to us, God will not “force” the RESCUE on us 

but waits for our call for “Help!” which comes when 

we REPENT of our sin and call out to God for His Mercy.

 When God hears our cry, He immediately 

“RESCUES” us, 

THIS TRUTH OF GOD RESCUING US  

we call

 “SALVATION”.

 My question to those that read this passage is simply:

 “Why do you not accept God’s Help 

instead of questioning ‘why’ He is such a 

Good, Kind, Gracious, and Forgiving God?”

JULY 12 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 12  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, Precious is that Name, the Name above all names, all praise 

and honor go to the Name of Jesus. The Only Begotten of the Father, 

yeah the only One of all the children of God that was able to live 

a Perfect Life while in the flesh, and even to the point of death 

at the end of His earthly Life, Jesus maintained that Perfection 

even in dying such a cruel death on the Cross! 

Jesus took His death and turned it into our Victory! Jesus, 

You are Faithful to fulfill Your Promises to us and Your Word is Pure! 

O Holy Spirit, my heart is yielded and my soul longs for Your Touch, 

my mind yearns to be filled with Your Understanding and even 

the most inward parts of my being begs for Your Salvation and Sanctification.

 Teach me, guide me, and lift up my soul to the Father!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus always has a Purpose for every Question, and that single Purpose

 is to reveal the Father to us, so why is Jesus spending so much

 of His Effort in Teaching us about “sin”?  Jesus asked JQ#21 in 

Matthew 17:25 just after telling His disciples that

 “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, 

and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” 

(Matthew 17:22) 

and immediately Jesus jumps to asking:

 “From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes,

 from their sons or from strangers?” (Matthew 17:25)

 — or is this a “jump” going from talking about the resurrection

 (being raised the third day) to the kings of the earth extracting “taxes”?

 Jesus made a very interesting statement to Peter once Peter answered that the

 “kings of the earth … take customs or taxes” 

from “strangers” and not from their “sons” and 

Jesus declared “Then the sons are free.” 

(Matthew 17:26) 

After Jesus made the “sons are free” statement 

He performed the miracle with the “fish and taxes” which illustrated 

that God wants us to continue in our daily lives and to trust Him to provide for us. 

Then Jesus Teaches in Chapter 18 about “sin” by addressing our 

worldly desire for “greatness” as expressed by a comment from 

His own disciples. 

Jesus replies to His disciples with this statement when the disciples asked Him 

“who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:1) 

——— Jesus answers

 “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted

…you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven…” (Matthew 18:2) 

Then for the remainder of Chapter 18 Jesus is Teaching about “Sin” !?!?!? 

These verses when viewed individually feel somewhat disjointed to me 

and the amount of verses dedicated to “sin” seems out of proportion,

 but then I read these passages as a whole and I see

 God’s Master Plan of Salvation in Matthew 17:20 - 18:35. 

When these passages are viewed as the Plan of Salvation

 it becomes evident that God is serious 

about resolving the sin problem!!! 

To illustrate the Magnitude of God’s Compassion for a lost world, 

Jesus spends His earthly ministry Teaching 

“Repent … the kingdom of heaven is at hand…” 

(see Matthew 3:2 and Matthew 4:17) 

and He emphasizes that 

God has prepared a heaven for those that 

“repent” or are “converted” from their sin 

and that God has also prepared a “hell” 

for those that reject God. 

Time and time again Jesus has stated that we must personally make 

this decision that determines where we will spend our “eternity” 

after our “(very brief) lifetime on earth” which begins with 

our “physical” birth to an earthly mother and father. This “physical” lifetime

 will be terminated either by our “physical” death on earth or our

 “spiritual birth” into the “Spiritual kingdom of God” 

to which Jesus alluded to with His 

“the sons are free” 

statement in Matthew 17:26. 

So the Master Plan of Salvation is God 

sending His Only Begotten Son to the earth to become flesh 

so that Jesus can live a perfect life which will be 

the ONLY acceptable Substitutionary Sacrifice 

wholly acceptable to the Father and this “Acceptable Sacrifice” 

will be a “Once for All” Sacrifice for All Sin. 

Mankind is sinful and will be judged by a Just and Faithful God 

who at the beginning of His creation declared the

 “penalty of sin is death”.

 As a sinner, we must admit our sin and then “repent” of our sin

 and we will receive 

God’s Gift of “Grace” and “Forgiveness” 

for our sins because Jesus paid our debt to sin when He was

 “betrayed into the hands of men … [and killed]” 

God sealed His Promise by “Resurrecting Jesus” 

from the grave on the “third day”!!! 

Jesus has stated 

His Divine Purpose was to “save that which was lost [in sin]” 

(Matthew 18:11) 

and so

 our personal decision to “repent from sin” and “convert”

 to being sons of God will determine where we will spend our eternity 

——— we will either spend our eternity with God 

or separated from Him and our eternity boils down to a simple question ———

 “Do we believe God means what He says?”