GodSprings - 13, June, 2017

Am I Satisfied With Asking When I Am Supposed to Knock?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Matthew 7:7-8

William Wilberforce, English politician, philanthropist and a leader of the movement to stop the slave trade, was discouraged one night in the early 1790’s after another defeat in his ten-year battle against the slave trade in England. Tired and frustrated, he opened his Bible and began to go through it. A small piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the floor. It was a letter written by John Wesley shortly before his death. Wilberforce read it again: “Unless the divine power has raised you up…. I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that (abominable practice of slavery), which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God. Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go in the name of God, and in the power of His might.”

Some people think verse 7 is a blank check. Is it really? Verse 8 says that for everyone that asks receives and everyone that seeks finds and to him that knocks it shall be opened. Is it that simple? I don’t think so.

These verses are not blank cheques. There are certain conditions that Jesus has already mentioned in the Sermon he was delivering. So we need to consider this verse in purview of the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. This becomes a blank cheque when the conditions are right. Which means that we are His obedient child and we ask according to His will, in order that He may be glorified.

When we look at the verse we can notice that it’s not that simple. There is progression and perseverance involved in it. We need to keep on asking, keep on seeking and keep on knocking.

Asking is very simple. Every child does that. But there is no involvement and participation. We just ask. Seek on the other hand is stronger than just asking. There’s a participation in it. It can be said that at least we are moving our eyes to seek. But when it comes to knocking there’s a greater participation.

For example, I cannot just sit at my home and say, “Lord, I want to preach a great sermon this coming Sunday. Please, I ask you, give me a great sermon.” Just by simply asking I won’t be able to deliver a sermon. What I have to do is that I have to ask the Lord all week for that and then I seek that by going through the Word of God and reading and reading. And then I begin banging on the Lord, on most occasions this happens on Saturday night saying, “Lord, I’m struggling with this portion and I want to understand it.” I realize that God is the only one who can produce through me, but at the same time, I have got to be involved in the process.

Why does God want us to be involved in this fashion? Is it because he loves seeing his creation banging for certain things? I don’t think that we have to bang to get God to act, but the more we are involved in the process, the greater the relationship becomes. The deeper, the richer and the more meaningful communion I can have with Him.

Let us pray – Dear Lord, help us to have the attitude of perseverance when it comes to having a relationship with You. Amen.

GodSprings - 12, June, 2017

Do I Proclaim The Gospel With Discernment?

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”

Matthew 7:6

In his book The Gospel According to Starbucks, Leonard Sweet tells the story of Ed Faubert. Faubert is what you call a “cupper” – in layman’s terms he’s a coffee-taster. And his sharp taste buds are actually certified by the state of New York. So refined is Faubert’s  sense of taste for coffee that even while blindfolded, he can take one sip of coffee and tell you “not just that it is from Guatemala, but from what state it comes, at what altitude it was grown, and on what mountain.”

Spiritually we need to cultivate this skill of discernment that will enable us to know right from wrong, best from better, pure from defiled and principles from pragmatics.  

In verses 1-5 we saw that Jesus says we should not be overly judgmental. And here Jesus says that we should do things with discernment. What exactly does Jesus mean in this verse? Dogs, holy things, pigs, pearls. Who and what is Jesus talking about?

The dogs that Jesus is referring to are not the cuddly pets with friendly behaviour that we keep at home. Pigs and dogs are often coupled together in the Bible and are both emblems of uncleanliness.

What did Jesus mean when he mentioned dogs and pigs? In the Messianic Psalm it is recorded “For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stare  and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22:16-18). Who are these dogs? These are the people who did not pay any heed to the gospel that Jesus told.

Jesus is saying that we should not take the gospel and throw it to those people who glory in their shame like the dogs and take the precious pearls of the gospel and throw them to those who love sin like pigs. Why shouldn’t we do this? Because these people don’t appreciate the gospel. They regard it as foolishness. The dogs and pigs are not just unbelievers. They are unbelievers who had an opportunity to hear the gospel but have decided to reject it.

The word of God is not to be laid open to abuse and mockery. We must use discernment. It is no use to try to explain Christianity to someone who just want to mock, argue and ridicule. When we persist beyond a point in offering the gospel to such people, we are just inviting them to reject it with contempt. And Jesus advices us not to push it.

Jesus applied the same principle to the twelve apostles when He send them on their first mission. He warned them that they will meet two kinds of people. Some will be receptive to their message, others will not be receptive. Jesus said in Matthew 10:14 – “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.”

So, what Jesus is asking from us is some discernment. But then it doesn’t mean we keep quiet. Jesus’ life is an example. The gospel can be proclaimed both by our words and by our life. When we don’t talk, let the holiness of God be seen in our life. St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:3 – “And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

Through us let them see the gospel. And let us hope that one day they too will long for holy things, for these pearls that we have been blessed with, and they will come to us and say, ‘What must I do that I may have these pearls too?’

Let us pray – Dear Lord, help us to have the discernment in proclaiming Your gospel at the right moment and at the right place so that it will never be brought to condemnation but will be for life and salvation to all. Amen.

GodSprings - 11, June, 2017

Am I Able to Judge Who I Am?

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”

Matthew 7:3-5

Once upon a time in Persia there was a judge. This judge was bribed. And so he rendered a wrong verdict, for money. Cambyses was the Persian king. And he heard what happened. And so he ordered the judge to be executed. And after the judge was executed, he ordered his soldiers to skin him. Strip off all his skin. He took all of the skin of that judge, and with it, he covered a chair. And on that chair sat every judge from then on who judged in that court in Persia.

We are prejudiced by our own egos and so we are unfit judges. We are partial in our own favour and tend to think we have a different standard than everybody else, because we are hopelessly and utterly blind when it comes to perception.

Most of us when we have a problem with someone else, we focus on what that person did wrong. We think the problem will get better if the other person would change. Jesus tells us what to do in such situations. Jesus says that we must focus on our own weakness and changes we need to make. This does not mean that those around us don’t have faults in their life. Jesus wants us to focus first on what we must do and how we can and must change.

The plank referred to here is the word used for a plank in a large building often 40 feet long and 5 feet around. In other words, if we have a plank this large in our eye it would be utterly impossible to see the speck in our brother’s eye.

The plank is a picture of our self-righteousness. We are totally blinded by it. When it comes to seeing the sins of others we think we have 20/10 vision not realizing that we are blinded by our own self-righteousness. Or to put it in the words of Charles Spurgeon, “we see our brother’s sin with a microscope but we see our sin through the wrong end of a telescope”

As long as we’re self-righteous, and we think we’re all right, there’s no way we are going to help anybody. We are blind and it’s a plank in our own eye.

Let us pray – Dear Lord, help us not to pull splinters out of people’s eyes with a plank in our own eyes and help us see ourselves the way we are. Amen.