The Saturday after the Eighth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 16, 2025 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 21:19-22 (NKJV)
21:19 And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away.
20 And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?”
21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
Devotion
“And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” Really? Whatever we ask?! So many people have been led astray by preachers who have based their ministries on the “whatever” portion of Jesus’ words, while completely disregarding the word “believing”.
Jesus’ point is quite simple. The “whatever” is always contingent on “believing”. What are we as Christians supposed to believe when we pray? The answer is found in these words from the prayer Jesus taught us: “Thy will be done.” We have all had troubling times when we prayed and didn’t get the response we wanted. We may have even begun to think that God didn’t care. And yet, nothing could be farther from the truth.
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). When we hear these words of St. Paul we are reminded that the receiving of “all things” is God’s promise to us. While in this world we may not get everything we pray for, He has promised that when we rise from the dead on the Last Day, “all things” will be ours for Jesus’ sake.
Collect: Grant to us, Lord, we beseech Thee, the Spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy will; 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.
