FEBRUARY 02 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#02 “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you … and if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?” (Matthew 5:46-47)

 

FEBRUARY 02  THE JESUS QUESTIONS

   JQ#02  “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you …

and if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?” 

(Matthew 5:46-47)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer   

JESUS, Glory and Honor to the King of kings and Lord of lords. You are

 the Creator and man is but dust under Your Holy Feet. Yet You have made

 us heirs to the kingdom as we accept Your Invitation to join the Father and

 we become sons and daughters in the Family of God — to God be the

 Glory Forever!  Jesus, You know my heart, search it and know my desire

 to have You draw our entire family to You. I know full well that only You can

 accomplish Salvation! Lord keep my heart burdened for the family!”     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS is Teaching us to be concerned about the needs of others and the

 greatest need everyone has is “Love” — The above prayer was written 16 

years ago as I was greatly burdened for my oldest son Robbie who had 

started down his own path in the world and was heading into darkness. 

He had no job, no future, and no ambition, only raw talent without purpose

 which is more dangerous and destructive than it is advantageous. 

This study in the JESUS Questions has already taught me many new things

 but most importantly it has highlighted and clarified in my mind some of 

the lessons that I know now that God had intended for me when I started

 the “365 Prayers for Jesus” in the year 2000. I did not know what the

 outcome would be when I committed to starting my day by writing a 

prayer to Jesus and praying for the family every day for an entire year

 which I accomplished first in 2004. I mention this during our study of

 “The JESUS Questions” because I did not know what I would learn

 or accomplish when I started the “365 Prayers for Jesus” but there has been

 so much fruit from the 2004 year of starting my day by writing 

the Name “JESUS” that it is still impacting my life

 and I am sure that there are new lessons and new blessings in

 answering “The JESUS Questions”! 

The prayer above is a prayer that I wrote in 2004 that was especially

 meaningful to me in 2016 because of the new “The JESUS Questions” 

project and the impact that it is having in my family.  It is not a random 

coincidence that I would read a prayer written in 2004 that still has so 

much relevance to my working on JQ#02. Yesterday I wrote that the 

context around JQ#02 was all focused on understanding the “Love of God”

 and how important “Love” is to God and then challenged the reader

 to consider answering JQ#02 which is 4 Questions effectively asking 1 Question.  

God really wants us to stop and think about our answer so He asks the 

same question 4 different ways, which immediately reminds me of the story

 when Jesus appeared to Peter after the Resurrection and JESUS asked 

Peter three repetitive questions in John 21:15-17. The 3 Questions Jesus

 asked Peter can be translated as “Do you love Me?” asked from 

three different words used for “Love” with each one carrying successively

 more weight on the commitment to “Love God!”. 

My prayer in 2004 was a result or “fruit” of when I was first learning how to

 be a good follower and God had me looking down the path of “His Love”.

 In this 2004 prayer, I had prayed with the love of the best father I could be

 for my son Robbie at that point in my “Spiritual” journey and my heart was

 turned also to praying that our family would be healed. Since that first “family”

 prayer in 2004 I have prayed every day for our family and God has blessed

 and healed our family and God’s Grace has brought us all back together —

 we have a “Family Night” EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT —

  and the entire family gathers for our weekly Family Meal — God is Good!

******* 

>>>NOTE: 2/2/25 Sunday - Our “TUESDAY FAMILY NIGHT” began in

 January 2005 and ran continuously until February 2020. There were two

 main events that occurred in 2019 that contributed to discontinuing

 our Tuesday Family Night which was a “family” move of the 

Matriarch and Patriarch of our family along with my oldest son and 

my sister-in-law and my wife and I out to 64 acres to be 24/7/365 care givers

 to our 90+ years old “Memaw and Papaw”. Tuesday night was moved 

to Sunday afternoon and since our grandkids were now setting up lives

 of their own in other cities the 15+ years of 5 generations of 

“TUESDAY FAMILY NIGHT” slowly dissolved into Precious Memories

 and home movies. It is 2025 and with the passing of Memaw in 2023

 and Papaw 6 months later, we are doing only an occasional 

Sunday afternoon with our two sons.<<<  

*******

Tomorrow in this blog I will try to put an answer to JQ#02 which is effectively

 asking each of us to consider where and how are we directing our “Love”?

 God is always Teaching  us about “Love”, and

 in God’s Heart “LOVE” is ALWAYS about GIVING TO OTHERS —

“Love” is not “Love” if it is not given away! 

Stop and think where you would be today if at some point in life instead of 

feeling hurt you had chosen to “Love” the one hurting you instead of being

 the victim and having your own feelings hurt! Selfishness about “Love”

 will let your personal hurt drive you away, causing a separation in the relationship,

 but if you “Give Love to your attacker” you will find healing of

 relationships instead of hurt. 

Hold that thought as you read JQ#02 - Matthew 5:46-47.