PT-2 "God's Pattern For His Children Demands It" (Matt. 7:7-11)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/27/2021 10:19 AM

 

My Worship Time                              Focus:  PT-2 “God’s Pattern For His Children Demands It”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 7:9-11

 

            Message of the verses:  “9 “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”

 

            We want to begin this SD by focusing on verse eleven.  “If you then, being evil—speaking of sinful fathers—“ know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”  What Jesus is talking about here is one of the many specific scriptural teachings of man’s fallen, evil nature.  Jesus is not speaking of any specific fathers who are especially cruel and who are wicked.  He is talking of human fathers in general, all of whom are sinful by nature.  In other words He is talking about all of us as fathers because we were all born wrong.

 

            The key here is that the ones who are not true believers have no divine source to whom they can turn with assurance of in trust.  In the pagan world of Jesus day, and for that matter still true for today even though it may be a bit different, those pagan gods were actually only larger than life images of the men who made and worshiped them.  Paul speaks of this in his letter to the Corinthians as he states that there are no gods, as the men who worship these so called gods are actually worshiping demons.  John MacArthur writes “Greek mythology tells of Aurora, the goddess of dawn, who fell in love with Tithonus, a mortal youth.  When Zeus, the king of gods, promised to grant her any gift she chose for her lover, she asked that Tithonus might live forever.  But she had forgotten to ask that he also remain forever young.  Therefore when Zeus granted the request, Tithonus was doomed to an eternity of perpetual aging…Such are the capricious ways of the gods men make.”

 

            We as believers know that this is not true with our God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we saw in the previous chapter, Jesus uses the phrase “much more” to describe God’s love for His children (6:30).  Our wonderful divine, loving, merciful, and gracious Father who is in heaven has no limits on His treasure neither bonds to goodness that He is willing to bestow on those His children who ask Him as seen in verse eleven.  As we think for a moment of being, especially Christian parents, we would be willing to sacrifice most anything, including dying for our children, and yet the greatest human parental love cannot compare with our wonderful, loving Heavenly Father.

 

            MacArthur writes “There is no limit to what our heavenly Father will give to us when we ask in obedience and according to His will.  Again we get additional truth from the parallel passage in Luke, which tells us, ‘How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?’ (11:13).”

 

            Here is the bottom line here as Jesus is saying that if imperfect and sinful human fathers so willingly and freely give their children the basic of life, God will infinitely outdo them in measure and in benefit.  That is why the children of God are so blessed with every spiritual blessing as seen in Ephesians 1:3.  They are offered this by “the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us (vv. 7-8).  So if we want God to treat us with loving generosity as His children, we should so treat others, because we are those who bear His image.

 

            Lord willing we will conclude this section as we look at verse 12 which is commonly known as “The Golden Rule.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I surely desire to understand how much God loves me and wants to provide for the things that I pray about, but too many times my humanness gets in the way as I think of God like those people thought of the human gods that they made.  I know for a fact that God loves me for the sure evidence is sending His Son to take my place on the cross.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to pray for revival in my life, my family’s lives and also the lives of our Sunday school class and our churches lives.

 

1/27/2021 10:51 AM