Series: From Pastor’s Desk
Number: Vol. 14, No. 6.
Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours without measure from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am pleased to welcome you to the second week of the month of June 2025. And I pray that your heart will always be made ready to receive from God whatever good thing He wants you to have. Amen.
As we see in the bible, no one can receive anything good in this life, if God has not provided that thing. That means we can only receive what God has given or provided. If He, then, has not provided something, no one, regardless of how great his faith may be, can receive it. (Cf. John 3:27)
But then, even if God has provided something for us, we too must want to have it. Otherwise, that thing may never be ours, unless we are shown mercy. For example, as we see in the bible, the family of Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless for many years, even though they were righteous before God. That, of course, did not make them turn to some other gods for help. Instead, they kept on praying to God to show them mercy and take away their disgrace. (Cf. Luke 1:5-7)
Now how did I know that they were praying to God to take away the shame of barrenness from their home? I know because, as we also see in the bible, when God sent angel Gabriel to give the good news of His answer to their prayer to them, the first thing he told Zechariah was, “Your prayer has been heard.” So, if we will not faint in praying to God, we will surely receive an answer to our prayer, as long as it is in line with His will. Yes, the answer may take a while to get to us. But it will surely come. (Cf. Luke 1:13)
However, will God’s answers to our prayers always meet us ready? Are we going to be ready to receive from Him what He wants us to have, which we too may have been praying and longing for, when the thing is eventually brought to us? Zechariah was not ready to receive from God the child he had been praying for years for, when God eventually cleared the way for the child to come to his family. He could not believe that God was really going to give them a child in their old age. (Cf. Luke 1:11-20)
Why, then, was he praying to God all those years for a child? He was probably doing so to fulfil all righteousness. And if God had not been merciful to him, in spite of his unbelief, he would have been the reason his wife would remain childless for life.
So, it is not enough to be praying to God to give us something. Our hearts also must always be ready to receive from Him what we are praying for, regardless of how long it takes for the answer to come to us and regardless of how impossible it may seem for the answer to come to us. Otherwise, our prayer for that thing may end up being a waste.Not only that, we must continually give ourselves to the word of God, so that our faith will be strengthened to always be ready to receive from Him.
Mary the mother Jesus, for instance, never prayed to God to become the mother of the saviour of the world. She probably never considered nor took to seriously the Scripture that talks about a virgin that would conceive and give birth to the saviour. But when angel Gabriel came to tell her that she had been chosen by God to be the mother of the saviour, her faith was ready to accept what God had chosen her for. So, she said, “May your word to me be fulfilled.” And it was so. (Cf. Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:36)
In like manner, if our faith is always ready to receive from God, whatever He wants us to have will be ours, even if we have never prayed for it. So, let us learn to daily feed ourselves with His word, so that we may always have a ready faith to receive from Him. And may you and I be strengthened to do so, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a great week.
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