Monday after the Second Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on June 10, 2024 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 7:7-11 (NKJV)
7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 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 good things to those who ask Him!”
Devotion
When Jesus gives us His righteousness and makes us the children and heirs of His Father, is it not ludicrous to think or act like He could somehow leave behind His wisdom and grace to become worse than a human father? All that we deserved, He took out on Jesus precisely so that He could bless us as Jesus alone deserved. Jesus uses these extreme examples of how no human father would fail precisely so we would stop acting as if God would do so.
“Why don’t I have everything that I want, then?” The things asked for in Jesus’ examples of human fathers doing what is right for their children are things for which it is good and right to ask. Still, those fathers are not depicted as giving their sons the things for which they asked, but simply not giving them something bad when they’ve asked for what is good. Asking our Father, we receive. We may not receive exactly what we ask for, but we receive what meets that need or desire in the way that is best for us. Asking for bread doesn’t get us a stone, but asking to make a meal out of cake might bring us bread and fish, along with whatever amount of cake will bless us or test how our faith teaches us to see the world. Our Father gives us “good things,” the things that bring health and blessing for all eternity!
Collect: O Lord, Who never failest to help and govern those whom Thou dost bring up in Thy steadfast fear and love: Make us to have a perpetual fear and love of Thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
