JANUARY 04 THE JESUS QUESTIONS Introduction-04:
Lessons, Lifestyle, and Parables of Jesus: JQ#1-JQ#33
(Matthew 1:1 thru 3:17)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, I awoke this morning with the need to pray first in my mind
but when I started to pray there was some sort of “spiritual” distraction
of unknown origin that seemed to prevent me from praying in
“Spirit and in Truth” — and I was disturbed!?!? I lay in bed and struggled
to “commune” with God but the “perceived separation” caused me great
uneasiness! After meditating on “cause” and coming up empty, I then
thought about the “effect” and almost immediately I was confident that
I was being given a “taste” of going on my journey alone.
Jesus, I am also confident that I no longer want to walk by myself
and be alone as I traverse this “valley of the shadow of death” and I praise
You for the glimpse of where I could end up if I had not started following You.
Lord Jesus, You simply told Your disciples “Come follow Me”
and You still today invite those that do not wish to travel this journey
of life alone to “walk” with You. Lord Jesus, in going before us and
walking the extra mile with us, You add the promise that You will never
leave us nor forsake us! The “glimpse” today was a reminder to me
that if we get separated it will be my fault — Lord Jesus, I pray with all
my heart, keep me focused on following Your “LIGHT” and always
staying on Your “paths of righteousness”! AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus and who Jesus “really is” was a topic of debate from the time
of His virgin-born arrival on earth and who Jesus “really is” continues
to be debated today. It is very interesting to note that there is a great
“double standard” being applied to the debate on the “person and purpose”
of Jesus Christ and whether or not He should
even be given the title of “Christ”.
Today in our highly “legal” society here in America, our government
is dominated by “lawyers” and it is a fact that our government now has
more “control” over our personal lives than at anytime in the past —
and in the debate on the “TRUTH of JESUS”, our society is being
forced to accept as “truth” what “elected” lawyers, “party-appointed”
judges, and “self-serving legislation” passed by our “elected law makers”
decide is “truth-for-the-common-good”???? These “anti-God”
laws imposed by “progressive” legislators on our modern society today
include the “legal-right” to kill unborn children, which should give us a clue
as to what the main problem with our society “really is”!
For example; in our “double-standard” society today there are “laws”
addressing “slander” (the action or crime of making a false spoken
statement damaging to a person’s reputation) and “libel” (a published
false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation)
which directly apply to the debate on “who Jesus really is” and the
“double standard” (a rule or principle that is unfairly applied in different
ways to different people or groups) that is prevalent in this ongoing debate
is that the government that has passed the laws on “slander and libel”
are themselves the most guilty of both since they have legislated
God out of government and will not allow God Himself, through
His Holy Bible, to declare “who Jesus really is”!!!!!
The “irony” in this “double standard” is that the legal system today
will make witnesses who appear in court to give their “eye-witness”
account must first put one hand on the Bible and the court makes them
“swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you God” and yet the same legal system has legislated God and the
Bible out of the legal system and will not allow the Bible as a “witness”
in the same courtroom that the Bible must be sworn upon to make
a testimony valid!?!?!?!? I am sure that in the highly legalist
religious theocratic system of the Pharisees and Sadducees that there
were many of the same such “double-standard legalistic self-serving laws”
existing in Israel to protect the “power” of the “legalist elite” and
therefore the New Testament writers would have been held
accountable in the Jewish legal system in place at the time of Jesus.
All the writers of the New Testament were not only “evangelists” that
were clearly stating Jesus had addressed problems with the
“legal authority” of the Pharisees and Sadducees but the New Testament
writers wrote these claims as a matter of public record!
Jesus Himself by today’s standards would be labeled a “terrorist”
because He made “direct threats” against their “legal system” and said
the temple itself would be destroyed — just imagine if someone today
said that the U.S. Government, the White House and our legal system
was going to be “destroyed” and this person was also directly claiming
that the U. S. Government's “rule” would be “taken from them” and
further, if that person was publishing public documents and writing letters
(or emails) stating how the government would be overthrown, that
person would be arrested and their statements and writings would be used
to convict them of “crimes” against the government and these “crimes”
would carry the severest penalty! However, in today’s society the very
evidence that would be used to convict Jesus of being a “terrorist”
would not be allowed in the same courtroom to prove that
Jesus was and IS who the Bible documents Him TO BE!!!
So as we begin our Journey to discover “TRUTH” then we must agree
we need a “reasonable unbiased Moral Standard” to be be used to
determine the final verdict as to the validity of “TRUTH” itself!>!>!>!
Because the Moral Standard itself is in the hands of biased “progressive”
legalist who control both the Moral Standard and the legal system we
can rightly assume that a government of “legalists” find it to their
advantage to impose their will on “we the people” ———and we
can readily see the problem of letting a “special interest” group
decide on the Moral Standard to be applied to an entire society
(by government force and legal action)!?!
St. Matthew wrote a document dated C. A.D. 50 which puts his
“eyewitness” account very close to the actual event of which he
wrote about “who Jesus really was” and the “facts” that St. Matthew
wrote down would have to have been highly scrutinized by the “legalist”
of that era and all the claims of Jesus that St. Matthew put in his
document would have been “judged” as to it being “libel” based on
“slander” which was directed against the “reputation” of those that were
in “power” at the time Matthew wrote of Jesus!
To be fair we must read Matthew”s document and ask ourselves,
“If St. Matthew did not write what is true then why has there
been so many printed copies of his testimony and why was Matthew
been made a ‘Saint’ instead of being punished for his ‘crime’?”