FEBRUARY 01 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 01  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, oh how sweet the Name, oh how precious is the privilege to call

 on the Name Jesus and to know that You hear. Lord, to come to You with

 all that we have and to be able to drop it into the very Blood of Sacrifice 

that You shed for me on Calvary! Oh what Joy and the Peace of being

 able to leave them with You!  Jesus, I will continually praise Your Name

 even in all circumstances for Your Love and Mercy never changes and I am

 now able to catch a glimpse of how great is Romans 8:28, for the more

 I love You, the more I can praise You and even our worldly pains can

 bring us Your Peace. Forgive me my sins, all my sins known and unknown

 to me, that I may serve and love You better.     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS tells us in JQ#01 how important it is that we consider others before

 our selfish worldly desires and then in JQ#02 He is Teaching us that the

 greatest way to imitate God is to “Love others as God has loved us!” 

So let us look at this passage in Matthew 5:43-48 and answer the Question(s)

 Jesus asked about “LOVE” in Matthew 5:46-47. There are 4 separate

 Questions asked successively that ask the same thing from different

 angels and because all 4 questions ask the same Question they are 

obviously making a single point; let’s examine the Question(s) and then

 seek to answer them relative to “context”. 

JQ#2A & B:  “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?

 Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46)  

JQ#2C &D “And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?

 Do not even the tax collectors do so?” (Matthew 5:46) 

The first thing that jumped out at me was the theme of “LOVE” and

 “doing for others” that is obvious in this passage. In Matthew 5:43 Jesus

 repeated a popular Teaching when He makes the statement: 

“You have heard that it was said, 

‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” (Matthew 5:43)

 in which Jesus addresses both “love” and “hate”.

 He concludes His Teachings in this last section at the end of a great Teaching

 chapter by Teaching about the importance of “LOVE” and included in

 His “LOVE” Lesson is a very Personal Lesson: 

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you,

 do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who 

spitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)  

What I personally got out of this section is that Jesus by adding this 

section on “LOVE” is trying to convey to us how we should view God,

 improve ourselves, and develop a proper perspective on how to treat 

our “brethren”. It is important in our seeking to understand God that we

 understand the importance that God Himself places on

 “LOVING OTHERS”. 

We need go no further than John 3:16, (and there is a “Divine” reason

 that almost everyone can quote John 3:16) which starts: “For God so loved…”

 and it states the extent of His “LOVE” for “the world” (the context

 of this verse establishes the world as mankind and His original physical 

creation) His “LOVE” was demonstrated by His willingness to give

 “His only begotten Son” 

so that fallen man could be redeemed and inherit

 “eternal life”.

 When we consider that

 God’s motivation for our Salvation was driven by “LOVE” 

then we do get a glimpse of how important and what a big,

 big part that “LOVE” plays in God’s Plan of Salvation! 

One could conclude that “LOVE” is the key to “everlasting life”!

 Everyone should read the book of John to get a true appreciation of the

 importance of “LOVE” in every thing God does for us and in everything

 He asks us to do for others. Study again these questions in Matthew 5:46-47

 in the context of God’s “LOVE” and the importance of God placing

 on us His Command to “love one another”! 

Why do you think that God chose “tax collectors”

 to drive His point home to us?

JANUARY 31 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)

 

JANUARY  31  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, there is a “Peace” as I start my morning and write the Name “JESUS”!

 Lord I thank You for asking me two simple questions when I started my Journey

 to You — (1) “What is TRUTH?” and (2) “Who do you say I am?”. 

Just two simple questions that when I truly answer them I know that 

God’s WORD is TRUTH and that YOU ARE THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD!  

These “honest” answers have been a Guiding Light 

{{Your word is a lamp

 for my feet, a light on my path. (Psalm 119:105)}} 

and a Shelter in the Time of Storm. 

Lord, I do believe that You are the Son of God, the Savior, the Christ 

and I have supreme confidence that the Power that has been given

 by the Father to the Son is the same Power that surrounds

 even the spoken Name of Jesus! 

Lord Jesus, I feel Your Mercy and Grace when I speak or write the Name of Jesus

 and I praise You that You so freely bestow Your Grace on

 “whosoever” calls upon the Name of the Lord! 

JESUS, JESUS, JESUS.     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS with His JQ#01 got us to thinking about how we treat others and

 how to use those “natural” abilities God endowed us with to better mankind 

and the JQ#01 Lesson was that we should give of ourselves “physically”

 since we “are salt” and to give of ourselves “spiritually” because we 

“are light”. We are to do these things because we are made in the image

 of God and Lesson #1 foreshadows Jesus “giving” Himself “physically”

 on the cross for the atonement of our sins and that He lived His Life 

“Spiritually” as “the LIGHT of the world”. 

Now with JQ#02 we hear an echo of, 

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

but the greatest of these is love.” 

(1 Corinthians 13:13) 

as Jesus draws our attention to the Truth of Love — 

Love is not what you get from others, 

“True Love is measured by how much you GIVE AWAY”!! 

Jesus is telling us simply to live our lives from the inside out and the more

 you give away, the more you will have! We certainly tend to measure the

 amount of “love” in our life by listing the number of people that “love us” 

but Jesus is saying your “reward” will be given to you because of 

“the number of people you have loved”!!! 

I know this is TRUE because the Greatest Love known to mankind came

 from God which He bestowed on an undeserving world —

 “For God so loved the world 

that He gave His only begotten Son

 that whoever believes on Him shall not perish 

but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) 

I would say that God set a pretty good “example” in “loving the undeserving”

 and Jesus showed He “loved” the Father by obeying the commands

 of the Father, even to the “giving of Himself for the sins of the world” — 

So the Greatest Examples of “LOVE” come from those that GAVE LOVE —

 and we should appreciate the fact that it was “LOVE” that motivated 

God’s decision to Sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for “undeserving sinners”

 and we should try to learn Lesson #2 from JQ#02 that Jesus 

is trying to Teach us about “love”. 

We are not “Holy” because others “love” us with worldly “love” — 

we become “Holy” when we “Love” others with a “Godly Love”,

 and we are to give God’s Love to those God Gave His Love to —

 the unloveable and the undeserving; 

then and only then will we know real “LOVE”!!! 

To introduce JQ#02 the Holy Spirit brought to my mind Romans 8:37 

where Paul had declared one of the Gospel’s main TRUTHS that Christians 

are “more than conquerors” when we “Love” as God Loves and we

 trust “all things” to Jesus Christ who demonstrated the Great Love of God

 by being Obedient to the Father’s command in “all things” as He suffered

 the Cross for our unloveable-sakes. Paul also reminded Christians that this

 “Victory” over “all things” including the powers of this world comes 

only through Jesus Christ and we should also understand that Jesus was

 motivated by the “Love of God”. How can we claim to have any “Victory”

 in our lives apart from God? 

God has established the “Right Way” (following God) and the “Wrong Way”

 (disobeying and denying God) and they are as constant and unchanging

 as God Himself. We see that as man “progresses” through time that the 

only constant of man is that each generation and even the greatest of men

 in each generation all “fall short of the Glory of God” 

and that God and His Laws are as Eternal and Unchanging as the rising

 and the setting of the sun that God has placed in His Universe to remind us

 daily that we are just a small planet in the midst of more stars than even

 our greatest scientists can count! 

Surely with all our intelligence it should be simple for man to see that the 

best efforts of all our most brilliant minds put together cannot unravel even

 the smallest detail of God’s Infinite Unchanging Glory. Yet we are arrogant

 enough to want to declare God as irrelevant and we insist on going it alone?

 Why our selfishness drives us to such self-inflicted agony cannot be

 explained aside from the reality of our world that we all “want” all “things”

 to be all “ours” and we ignore God and His TRUTH, who from the 

very beginning established all the Laws of the Physical Universe. God also 

established all the Spiritual Laws of the Universe as well! 

It can be observed by mankind that the Spiritual Realm does exist. We seem

 to ignore the fact that the Spiritual Realm has a greater effect on the

 Physical Realm than vice versa. It is a part of observational science to 

conclude that unhappy, dissatisfied, and angry people cause more harm

 to themselves and others around them than do happy, content, and loving

 people. All these “motivators” are “spiritual” emotions and even our courts

 express the consequence of expressing ourselves physically

 relative to our spiritual states.  Realize that God is the Creator of all things

 and that there are Spiritual Laws and Physical Laws that are undeniably

 interwoven into the fabric of Life by the Creator. There is a reason God

 continuously commands us “to love” and “not to fear”. Think on your “emotions” 

as you try to answer 

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) 

and God will guide you in your thinking about “loving others” and I’m betting

 you’re going to find that the more you give away the more you have

 and you are simply going to “love” it! 

After all — everlasting life is a pretty good “reward”!!!