23 Jan. Ask God for what you NEED (not for what you WANT)!
"Ask, and God will give to you. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will open for you. Yes, everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened."
"If your children ask for bread, which of you would give them a stone? Or if your children ask for a fish, would you give them a snake?"
"Even though you are bad, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him!"
(Matthew 7:7-12)
No one likes to see a spoilt child - the one who yells every time he or she wants something - and then gets their own way to quieten them!
Jesus tells his listeners in today's passage from the 'Sermon on the Mount' that, so often when we pray to God, we're like a spoilt child. We ask for things we don't really NEED, and then we yell and complain when we don't get what we asked for!
The key to prayer is to ask God for what we NEED, not for what we WANT! But like a spoilt child, so often we don't realise what we actually NEED.
Kind parents don't always say 'Yes' to a child when they ask for something! They know that a child has to learn that they can't always have what they WANT; but they'll always give them what they NEED.
When we pray like the child we are, we often don't know what we really NEED - but God does! So why not ask God to give you what HE knows you need, rather than what YOU think you'd like?
The photo shows Jesus Christ, the 'Light of the World', knocking on the door in a painting by Henry Holman Hunt.
You can find out more about the 'Sermon on the Mount' on The Bible Journey website @ https://www.thebiblejourney.org/…/jesuss-teachings-on-a-h…/…