Wednesday, July 29, 2015

As we’ve been focusing our attention on the secret dimension of our Christian walk, work and worship as seen in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6 and 7, we found Jesus doesn’t want us to get ourselves into a straight-jacket. We could become paranoid, always evaluating whether we are strictly following all the details of what Jesus was saying. In that state, we might have a need and hesitate to ask Jesus for help. Our relationship with Jesus is to be freeing and dynamic, not repressive and enslaving. So in the midst of His sermon Jesus declares, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (verses 7-8). If you were to read it as written in the original language, these three directives are in the present tense: keep on asking, seeking and knocking, for if you keep on asking, seeking and knocking you’ll get it. If you go through the motions of prayer repetitively to get God’s attention and recognition for praying, without it being a genuine expression of need, God says, “You have your reward.” If you keep on praying because of the deep felt need you have or desire for someone else, God hears and answers. This is an amplification of what the Psalmist pointed out in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” God takes delight in giving answers to your prayers and enjoys spending time with you as you pray.