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 of God 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
years earlier 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 each 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,
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 “family” 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. 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.
