Matthew 7:7
In Matthew chapter 7 and verse 7 Jesus
changes the subject, and teaches for the next 5 verses about prayer. The emphasis
that Jesus is going to make is that we can be certain that God hears us and
that He responds to everything that we say to Him. Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find;
knock and it shall be opened unto you."
And in verse 8 Jesus said, "For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks
finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened."
This is an amazing invitation. There are no
restrictions given by Jesus and no limitations on what to ask for. He has left
the door wide open. God does answer prayer. James said, "The effectual fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much."
Amazing and mighty things have been accomplished because of prayer. Battles
have been won, sin has been avoided, souls have been saved, the name of Christ
has been glorified, diseases have been cured, the destiny of nations has been
changed, and much more because of the prayers of
God’s children. It may be that the greatest thing that you will ever
accomplish in your life is to learn to believe these promises that Jesus gave
and to pray.
Some things God will do
no matter what any human says or does. For example, the return of Christ has
been planned ahead of time by God and nothing will stop that event from taking
place. But there are other things that will happen only if people pray about
them. Notice the three-fold command given by the Lord Jesus. He said to "ask",
"seek", and "knock." He makes it clear
that it is up to us. If we become involved in a life-long conversation
with God, we will find Him a willing and responsive companion, ever able to
assist us in any circumstance. It is kind of like God is waiting with that
great and eternal patience of His with His arms out to us, hoping that we will "ask", "seek", and "knock."
To prove His point Jesus uses a very simple
illustration of how a human parent would respond to his own child. In Matthew
7:9-10 Jesus said, "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread,
will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a
serpent?" And then Jesus says in verse 11, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good
things to them that ask him?"
Jesus called those to whom he was speaking "evil" because He was comparing them to God. Compared to God, the
same would have to be said about you and me. If we know how to give to our
children because we love them, certainly God has a much greater capacity to
give and a much greater love than we could ever imagine. Therefore, we have
every reason to have no doubts and to be full of faith when we ask Him anything.
Those who are evil will give to their children. How much more God will give
because He is good.
In Matthew
It is interesting to note that Jesus said
that to do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
is the law and the prophets. Jesus is
talking about the Old Testament. In the King James Version of the Bible the Old
Testament is almost 1000 pages. Jesus said that it could be summarized and
abbreviated into this one phrase, "all things whatsoever you would that men should do to
you, do you even so to them."
In Matthew chapter 7:13-14 Jesus talks
about an extremely important subject: the eternal destiny of human beings. He
said, "Enter
you in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that
leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is
the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that
find it."
Jesus makes it very clear that there are
two different ways that a person can go in life
in a spiritual sense, or two different directions. Everyone is heading in some
direction. No one is standing still. You are either traveling on the path of
spiritual life or the path of spiritual destruction. Be careful of the
direction that your life is taking spiritually. If you do not go in the right
direction, you are headed for destruction.
Jesus told us about the "narrow way".
Giving a description of the "way" will also explain
why it is narrow. The way to spiritual life is not found in the keeping of a
list of requirements or obligations, because the "way" is a
person. A religion or a church of any kind is not the "way", because the "way" is a
person. You come to know the "way" by
coming to know the person who is the "way". In
John 14:5 the disciple Thomas asked Jesus, "How can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and
the life: no one comes to the Father, but by me."
In John 10:9 Jesus said, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be
saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."
The "way" is
narrow because there is only one way. You have heard the saying that all roads
lead to
There is a tremendous urgency here in the
teachings of Jesus to make the right decision and to
enter the narrow way because your eternal destiny is at stake. Jesus
said, "Enter
you in at the strait gate." "Enter" is an
imperative, a command. God wants us all to be saved, but it requires our
cooperation. It requires that we make a conscious and determined decision to go
with God instead of all the other ways that we could go.
In our lives on this earth we are often
faced with decisions. Every decision that we make has its consequences. Some
are more important than others, but we constantly make choices about one option
or another. There are many choices that we make that
have a major impact on our human destiny: choosing a spouse; the type of
training and education that we seek; where we live; and where we work. It is
within the control of each of us to choose one thing or another in these
matters.
On a smaller scale, we constantly make
decisions on a daily basis. For example, each day we choose our diet: the
amount of exercise and rest that we have; and what we do with our spare time.
Our lives are truly made up of making decisions and then experiencing the
consequences of those decisions. Wisdom is to understand what are the options,
and then to make the right decision in order to experience the best of
consequences.
Robert Frost understood this phenomenon of
human life and expressed it very well in the poem, “The Road Not Taken”.
The last stanza of that poem is:
I
shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere
ages and ages hence:
Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I
took the one less traveled by,
And
that has made all the difference.
One thing is very clear. You will not be
able to find the "way" by doing what
everyone else does. You must be willing to be different. Any dead fish can
float down stream, but it takes a live one to go against the current. Joshua
said, "Choose
you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord."
There is a very sad note to what Jesus
taught here in Matthew 7:13. Jesus looked into the future and saw the wrong
choice being made by great numbers of people and He said, "broad is the way
that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat." Jesus died for the sins of the whole world,
and He is more than able to save every soul that has ever been born. How sad it
is that vast quantities of people are choosing to go their own way instead of
God’s way. Proverbs says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end
thereof is the way of death." Don’t
make the same mistake. Dare to be different for the sake of the forgiveness of
your sins and the salvation of your soul. Make sure that you have chosen the
narrow way and have entered the narrow gate, which is Jesus Christ.
In Matthew
The first thing to learn about following
Jesus is to be careful about whom and what you listen to. There are false
teachers. They are false because they themselves do not know Jesus, and
therefore they do not know the way. Jesus teaches in
the gospels about false teachers. Jesus warns us to avoid them and to
not listen to them. He points out that if the blind lead the blind, they shall
both of them fall into the ditch.
One of the things about Christianity is
that a person can learn the language of Christianity without having experienced
a relationship with Jesus Christ. There are many people who have joined the
church and have learned to use a certain conversation while they are in the
church building, but the rest of the time they are like everyone else in the
world. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus had
said, "Blessed
are those who do and teach." Anyone
who has not learned to put into practice Jesus’
teachings in the personal areas of their life is not qualified to teach
God’s Word. Do not assume that you are safe because you and your children are
in a building with the word ‘church’ outside. On the inside of the building,
according to Jesus, there may be a pastor or Sunday school teacher who is a
ravening wolf.
A true teacher of spiritual things is
motivated first of all by a desire to honor the name of Jesus Christ, and
secondly by a desire to help those that he teaches to grow in faith and in a
love for God. In contrast to this a false teacher seeks to honor himself and
seeks to profit from those that he teaches. Jesus would later say that he that
seeks his own glory speaks of himself. Paul wrote about the qualifications of a
pastor in First Timothy chapter 3 and Paul said that
anyone that is greedy of material gain is not qualified.
Jesus gave a very detailed description of
how to recognize false teachers in Matthew 7:16-20. He said, "You shall know
them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even
so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth
evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is
hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know
them." The
longer that you are associated with organized religion, the more that you will
hear shocking stories about some pastors and teachers. There will be horrible
revelations made because some will be revealed to be womanizers, child
molesters, and thieves, as Judas was. Jesus
says here that all such phonies will eventually be cut down and cast into the
fire. Because of the great harm that they do, they deserve such a fate. You can
avoid being duped and fooled by them if you give heed to this warning from
Jesus.
Remember that you are to be a follower of
God and not man. This will help keep you from falling under the control of a
false teacher. The Lord gives wisdom. Solomon became the wisest of all men
because he sought wisdom from God. If you walk in the Spirit and are taught by
the Spirit of God, He is more than able to give you understanding of His Word.
Isaiah called Him "Wonderful Counselor".
Don’t ever surrender the freedom of your will or your capacity to think for
yourself to any human. Always retain the attitude of the Christians who lived
in the Greek city of
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Copyright; 2007 by Charles F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved