THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013 - LENTEN WEEKDAY - MATTHEW 7: 7 - 12

1.      Prayer demonstrates how deeply we trust God and how much we love and depend upon Him. A person who really trusts God – who really knows that what he asks is going to be received – will bring more and more to God. He will come to God in prayer more and more. But the person who is not quite sure about receiving, will only occasionally come, usually only in emergencies. God easily sees how much we really love and trust Him by our prayer life.

2.      One should seek the kingdom of God and justice in prayer. It is not merely asking what one needs for himself or herself.

3.      The Jewish Rabbis had a lot of wonderful concepts on prayers. ‘God is as near to his creatures as the ear to the mouth’. A man is annoyed by the requests of his friends, but with God the more a person requests Him the more He is pleased with him or her.

4.      Jesus carefully chooses His examples. The little round limestone on the sea shore were exactly the shape and the colour of the little loaves, the serpent here means the eel which is actually an unclean fish which is forbidden to eat.

5.      God will always answer our prayers but in His own time and in His own way. He would never refuse our prayers. We need certain amount of patience and perseverance.

This morning around 5 am there was a knock on my door. I got up half asleep and opened the door and found an elderly man standing outside. I knew the old man who was from one of our sub parishes. He normally comes for prayer requests and some help. I got irritated and asked him, what he wanted. He kept looking at me in silence. I was all the more angry and asked him what he wanted from me. He looked at me gently and told me, ‘Father this is for you, I have brought some ground nuts from my field, please take it and give me back the bag, I am on my way to Vellore’. I emptied the bag, and sent him away. I came back to my room and looked at the ground nuts. I asked him what he wanted but he came to give what I wanted.

Courtesy

William Barclay, the New Daily Study Bible Series

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary

Preacher’s Outline and Sermon Bible