Key Verse: "If you then, though you are evil, know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven
give good gifts to those who ask Him!"
Matthew 7:11
For what, exactly, are you asking? Are you reading these
passages and seeing an opportunity to get God to give you what you want? Is
what you want really good for you? If it is what God wants to give you, then,
believe me, it is. If it is not good, and He says no, it is out of His love for
you that He refuses your request.
As I see it, there are two obstacles to understanding here.
First of all, for those of us who did not have good fathers, this passage does
not necessarily do much to help us build trust in our Heavenly Father. We do tend
to see God the way that we experienced our earthly fathers. Some of you may
actually have an earthly father who would
have given you a stone if you were to ask for bread, if he was around at all.
The first hurdle is learning to accept the fact that God is
not like that. God is involved and interested in your welfare. You can trust that no matter how human
relationships have failed you. Remember, God is not human, He is Holy. He is
"Other." He is not like us. He is set apart. He is above our pettiness
and He died for your benefit. To overcome this obstacle, if it is yours, is to
pray that the Lord will help you to trust Him more fully, as He deserves to be
trusted.
The second obstacle, as I see it, is in getting our eyes off
of ourselves and our selfish, physical desires, on to the unseen, where, even
now, Jesus is calling us to focus. In Luke, the "good," that God
wishes to give, is, "the Holy Spirit." (Luke 11:11-13) In Psalm 37:4,
we are told, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the
desires of your heart." That doesn't mean a better car or new home. If you
are delighting in the Lord, you want more of Him and He delights in giving you
more of that heart's desire when you ask, seek and knock for it. It is here
that we need to prayerfully revisit the issue of who is our master, and ask God
to help us refocus on the unseen and not on what is seen.
But then, why, in Matthew 7:12, does Jesus tack on that
golden rule? "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do
to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets." In truth, Jesus is
summarizing what all of His teaching has been about: treat others the way you
want to be treated, and the way you want to be treated by God, because it is the way God treats us! "Forgive,
for we forgive," "Do not judge, or you will be judged," "Be
generous, to receive blessing."
Just as God expects the best from us, His children, so He
wants us to expect the best from Him. Remember that Jesus is the original law
giver. He is the one who put the words in the prophets' mouths. All through the
Old Testament, this simple rule is what God the Father and God the Son, tried
to teach His people. While these sermons are a re-teaching of everything that
went before, in this one verse, Jesus is purifying His teaching down to one main
point: "it's about relationship." And, if we ask, seek and try to
enter the life that He has called us to live, we will not be refused. With His
help, we can live out His call.
Hymn: "More Holiness Give Me"
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