Scripture

Our verse for today comes from Matthew 21:22, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

Background

Tell me if this has ever happened to you before. You buy something that needs to be assembled, like a basketball goal or a desk or some toy for your child. When you open it up, you take out the instructions, and instead of reading the steps you need to take to assemble the item, there are instead a series of pictures depicting what it should look like at each step of the process. And as you go along, invariably you reach a point where the drawing doesn’t quite look like what you are assembling. You’re pretty sure you have taken the right steps so far, but now it seems that these mass produced instructions, used by thousands of people before you, have either made a blunder and led you down a dead end path, or been drawn so confusingly that it’s unclear what should be done next. So you hesitate to attach the next piece, doubting that it is correct. But you’re also afraid to do something different, not knowing what you’ll end up with if you start making up your own instructions. I won’t venture to guess how you resolve these types of issues. I suspect that gender plays into it to a certain degree.

Application

Belief can be a tricky thing, can’t it? You and I might read that God created the world in six days, or that certain things are sin, and believe them without hesitation. Others may read the same things and dismiss them as fables and religious nonsense. But I’m struck by what followers of Christ choose to believe and not believe. We tend to believe wholeheartedly in His power and authority. We believe we have done wrong and deserve punishment. We even believe in His grace and ability to forgive and redeem. But we don’t believe that we will receive what we ask for in prayer. We read this verse and think that something must be missing. We treat it like the instructions, doubting that it really means what it says. We figure God must have left something out. But He hasn’t. So don’t question the instructions. They are a call to believe, to believe in Him completely. If your faith looks like that, then you’ll know what step to take next.

Charge

As we seek Him today, allow God to be God, bigger than you can fathom and able to do exactly what He has promised precisely as He said. Ask Him to help you believe, and then watch what He’ll give you.

Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words