11-1-2016

      Good Morning All,

            Matthew 7:11; “If you then, who are 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!”

     So, last night two out of three grandchildren were able to come and trick or treat Grandma and Grandpa.  We had a ninja turtle and a kitty cat.  Our two-year-old granddaughter had her little black outfit with the kitty ears.  She held up her bucket and said trick or treat and then thank you just like she had been coached.  She looked at me with those big eyes and asked, “open, pease” as she held some candy.  She knows her mark, grandpa gives her whatever she wants.  When she bats those eyes, and smiles and says “grandpa, pease”; there isn’t a “no” in my vocabulary. (Just for the record, I don’t say no to my grandsons very well either.)

    We usually don’t think much of people who give whatever a child wants to them.  We tend to think it spoils them.  Yet this is the image of our heavenly Father.  Throughout Scriptures we are told to ask for it and we will receive it.  God wants to give us the totality of his grace.  He desires to pour out upon us the riches of his love and mercy.  It is not God that is stingy; it is that we do not ask.

    Now if my granddaughter asked for something that was dangerous, I would tell her “no.”  Yet my desire is to shower her with the great gifts of life; to give to her what will bless her in her lifetime.  Now as an earthly, limited human; I will never be able to accomplish this but our heavenly Father can.  Yet we limit what God does for us, what he desires to give us because we lack faith that God will give us all good things.  Rather than trusting in the loving kindness and the pure goodness of God, we stumble after false dreams and lost visions.  So, we walk away from the total benevolence of God and we remain mired in the emptiness of the world and the hollowness of our selfish nature.

    Yet God continues to shower us with blessing upon blessing, with grace upon grace.  Even as we do not ask or trust, we receive.  How much more would we receive if we truly walked in his ways and trusted him for all that we need?  This is the invitation which God offers us.  He offers us this life of grace and peace under his divine care.  It is ours through prayer.  We don’t need to beg or even learn how to bat our eyes; we simply ask in faith and God will give us all that we need.

     God’s love for us knows no limits.  His pure and perfect love is beyond our ability to comprehend.  Yet he showers us daily with this love and is ready to give us what we ask.  He knows what good gifts we need and he freely gives them and promises so much more for us if we only ask.

Father, I fall short in trusting your mercy.  I am not patient to wait for you to act.  I trust my own foolishness and I am left wanting.  Forgive me my sins.  Lead me to ask and to trust your grace to supply me.  In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret