MARCH 11 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ09 “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (Matthew 9:28)

 

MARCH 11  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  

JQ09   

“Do you believe that I am able to do this?” 

(Matthew 9:28)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Praise be to Your Spirit that calls us to identify ourselves with You

 and to Your Crucifixion. The Crucifixion is the Ultimate Solution to our 

sin problem and only by being Crucified with You can we truly identify

 with Your Resurrection which is the Victory over the world! 

Lord You gave me a glimpse of this Great Truth in 2004 and it was then

 that first I prayed for total surrender to Your Guidance as I try to die to self daily

 and be a part of Your Crucifixion and Resurrection each day ———

 I continue to this day to pray that prayer.

 Lord Jesus, You have made my heart tender with Your Love and I pray

 that You will continue to heal my “spiritual blindness” until 

the day arrives that I behold Your Face

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS has introduced us to discipleship using His Questions JQ#1-8 and 

with JQ#09 Jesus summarizes this “Introduction to Discipleship” 

when He gets serious and asks us bluntly, 

JQ#09 “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (Matthew 9:28) 

The Holy Spirit has now released me to move to JQ#09 but the context 

for this “Summary of JQ#1-8” will include the text from Matthew 9:14 through

 the end of the chapter at Matthew 9:38. This study on “The JESUS Questions”

 has been Teaching me some additional Lessons on “following the Spirit” 

which I did not anticipate but one thing the Holy Spirit has Taught me

 in my previous study of His Word is that

 if we can anticipate what is going to happen and we can explain it

 then it is not from God because 

“His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts 

are higher than our thoughts” (Isaiah 55) and 

“His understanding we cannot fathom”

 (Isaiah 40 NKJV). 

The more we learn of God the more we learn that our knowledge is finite

 and limited but God’s Knowledge is Infinite and is not limited in any way! 

In my personal experience God has always answered my prayers in such

 a way that there is no mistaking the Hand of God at work as He has personally

 put His Divine Signature on His Work in my life in such a way that no man

 could possibly take credit for what clearly must be of GOD, so now when

 I discern that He is trying to Teach me something deeper than I have 

learned before, I wait on Him to reveal to me in His Perfect Timing by

 some Divine Circumstance what He wants me to see. 

That happened this morning as I was reading my Prayer to Jesus written in 2004

 in my Oswald Chambers journal “My Utmost for His Highest”. I had tucked

 my “Utmost” journal away for several years but in was my privilege

 to mentor a new believer in 2014 named Dominic. The Holy Spirit told me

 to give my 2004 copy of “Utmost” to Dominic and let him read what I had

 written 10 years earlier as I had written a prayer to Jesus every day in 2004

 and how relevant the 2004 Teaching of the Holy Spirit was in 2014, a full 

10 years later! 

The Lesson there for all of us is to acknowledge that 

Jesus is both the “author” and the “finisher” of our faith 

and that we are to “daily take up our cross” and “follow Jesus” 

and April 10, 2004 was the beginning of my journey to the “Narrow Gate” 

as I read “…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of 

sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.”

(Romans 6:6).

 In God’s perfect timing it is now many years later and as I am writing and 

seeking how to summarize JQ#1-8 into what Lesson Jesus is Teaching I am

 directed to the words of Jesus at the end of JQ#08: 

“But go and learn what this means: 

‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ 

For I did not come to call the righteous,

 but sinners, to repentance.” 

(Matthew 9:13) 

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost and to Teach His followers that if 

we are to be like Him we are to extend “mercy” to others and in doing that

 we will be sacrificing ourselves as He did, therefore as 

“friends of the bridegroom” (Matthew 9:15)

 and as “friends of Christ the bridegroom” we should identify with 

the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the upcoming “marriage feast” 

for the bridegroom is the “Lord of the harvest” and we should 

“therefore pray that the Lord of the harvest [will] send laborers into His harvest.” 

(Matthew 9:38)  

In JQ#1-9 Jesus is Teaching His followers to be “harvesters”, 

so let us “Arise and enter the Harvest”!

MARCH 10 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#08 “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4)

 

MARCH 10  THE JESUS QUESTIONS

  JQ#08 

“Why do you think evil in your hearts?” 

(Matthew 9:4)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, no other name is like the Name of Jesus, there is no name

 under heaven or on the earth that man can call on for Salvation but Jesus,

 there is none but You, Lord Jesus that loves us even though 

we are continually sinning against Your Holiness. 

Yet instead of Your arms folded in rejection when we repent and return,

 You Lord Jesus, just like the Father welcoming the prodigal son,

 You run to greet us with open arms,

 You receive us unto Yourself as Your own. 

Lord Jesus, eternity will not be enough time to praise Your Holy Name!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

JESUS not only Teaches “individual” and “personal” Lessons as He 

reveals the Truth of God with each Question, Jesus also Teaches us 

a “universal” Lesson with the “order” with which Jesus weaves

 the Truth of God contained within each Lesson/Question. 

This “universal” Lesson comes from not only “what” Jesus Taught but

 the “order” in which Jesus Teaches each Lesson. Yesterday the Holy Spirit

 turned my thoughts to looking at this “universal” Lesson already Taught

 by The JESUS Questions JQ#1-8 before moving on to JQ#09 and as

 I started to move on to JQ#09 today the Spirit has made it clear that He

 wants me to present the outline that has been formed by JQ#1 - JQ#8 in

 Matthew Chapters 1-9 before moving to the next JESUS Question. 

The Holy Spirit directed me to initiate “The JESUS Questions” daily project

 and directs my writing of these morning devotionals and He also guides me

 to keep notes in a separate folder which now has developed into an 

“Introduction Outline to Discipleship” 

which sets forth the mindset for being a “Follower of Christ” that builds upon

 itself step by step the “Spiritual” importance of placing our “Faith” in

 the only “One” who is “Worthy” of our “Faith”. Jesus begins proving He

 is “Worthy” and is called for the Purpose of doing the work of God. 

Matthew Chapter 5 records Jesus giving us His 

“Sermon on the Mount” 

in which Jesus listed in the:

“The Beatitudes” 

(1st) that to inherit the kingdom of heaven 

we must enter through the “Spirit” 

(2nd) that if we care for and comfort others 

that we ourselves will be cared for and comforted, 

(3rd) that strength to inherit the earth

 will come from our weakness, 

(4th) to be filled with righteousness 

we should hunger for it, 

(5th) to be merciful 

in order to gain mercy, 

(6th) our ability to see God 

will come through our purity, 

(7th) and if we strive to make peace 

we will be called sons of God!  

Jesus concludes the “Beatitudes” with “not to worry” about the persecution

 on earth of our “Faith in God” because our righteousness

 will be rewarded in heaven. 

Jesus concludes with JQ#01 that those that “Follow Jesus” will be

 “salt and light” to the world.  JQ#02 Teaches us that 

Jesus did not come to destroy the Law of God but to fulfill the Law 

and then Jesus proceeds to instruct us how to “love others”, 

(both our enemies and our friends) as Jesus proclaims that 

“LOVE” is the Greatest Law.

 Jesus builds on these Lessons with a new command on how to be

 “salt and light” and how to “love others” which is an “imperative concept”

 to a Follower of Christ 

when we as a Followers of Christ encounter opposition

 to our “Faith in God”.

  When Jesus Teaches in JQ#03 “Not to worry” and then builds on

 the concept of “Do not worry” by Teaching us that to be successful

 in “not worrying” that we must practice what He Teaches in 

JQ#04 “Do not Judge”. Jesus then Teaches where to obtain the

 “Power of His Truth” as He tells us in JQ#05 that we are to 

“Ask-Seek-Knock” and we will “Find”. Jesus then calls us to 

“live” the principles He is Teaching and says that we will know if we are

 living by His Principles if we start “bearing the fruit of the spirit” 

as Taught in JQ#06. Jesus then makes it evident in JQ#07 that by going

 through these steps that we will be growing the basic elements 

of discipleship and that we must continually work to “build our faith”. 

We build our Faith in God by focusing on Jesus Christ, 

the Only Begotten Son who came to earth to reveal 

“our Father in heaven”! 

Jesus then starts instructing us in JQ#07 that 

there comes a point in our “faith” that we must “exercise” our “FAITH” 

by putting  “Action” to our “Belief” and at that point in our “Faith”, 

we as a Follower of Christ will “Arise & Walk” as Jesus details in JQ#8. 

Jesus concludes the “Introduction Outline to Discipleship” with this

 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ 

For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” 

(Matthew 9:12-13) 

This command from Jesus to “go and learn” points us to what will be required

 of each individual once we commit to being “Followers of Christ” 

and for starters Jesus said to 

“learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’” —

I see that I have have some studying to do because I know I am a sinner

 and that He has called me to “repentance” and has also commanded 

 “Follow Me”!