Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Questions and Answers


Reading Mark 11:27-33 (NIV)

"They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him.  "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?"

Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.  John's baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!"

They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?'  But if we say, 'Of human origin' …" (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)

So they answered Jesus, "We don't know."

Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

This is the same Jesus who once said, "Ask, seek, knock" (Matt 7:7), yet here is flat our refusing to answer a question placed before him.

Why is that?

It's because the heart behind the question is everything.  Often there are unspoken issues behind our questions, issues we may not even be aware of.  It is easy to see with these men they were not looking to know Jesus, but to confront him. 

Yet we can often be like them, we too can ask questions with wrong motives.

And questions like that often go unanswered by the Lord.  

James tells us, " When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  James 4:3 (NIV)

Are there unanswered questions you have been asking the Lord?  Perhaps take a moment and ask him to help you see the real reason behind the questions.

As Michael Card once said in a song, "Could it be that questions tell us more than answers ever do?"