Calling Out to God in Faith -Matthew 21
Read Matthew 20:20-21
Today’s Truth
Matthew 21:22 are words straight from Jesus. “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” What are we to do with this verse, this promise from Jesus? What I’m guessing most of us are familiar with times when we have asked for things in prayer, with faith, at least as best as we could tell, with faith, and yet we didn’t receive what we were asking for. How do we understand this?
This is why Jesus says, “When you come to your father, know that when you ask for fish, he doesn’t give you a snake. When you ask for bread, he doesn’t give you a stone.” If you who are evil, and I’m an evil father, I’m not a perfect father, I know how to give good gifts to my children and I want the best for them. How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts or the Holy Spirit, depending on what gospel you’re looking at, to those who ask him?
Discussion Questions
- Why are the disciples so surprised by what happened to the fig tree?
- How does Jesus use the fig tree incident to teach about faith?
- What kind of faith is Jesus talking about in verse 21?
Application
We could spend hours talking about different things that we ask for, before God and faith, that we don’t always receive. In light of that wrestling, when you hear a verse like this, I just want to encourage us, one, yes this is again why we call this podcast what we do, because we know that when we ask for God to be faithful to his word, specifically to his promises, to his ways, he will. We want to pray according to his word.
