Worth Repeating - November 19, 2017

Matthew 7: 7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (NIV)

Faith is receiving – or even more, actually appropriating – the gifts God offers us.*

Almost every word spoken by Jesus was a radical new thought. Love your neighbor; turn the other cheek; sin in your heart is sin; become a slave in order to be free. It is surprising that he expects such startling life-style changes to result in a blessed (happy) life. As Christians, we have a job to do – tell the world about Jesus – but we are not called to a joyless existence.

Read all the direct quotes of Jesus in your red-letter edition of the New Testament and you will notice that he says less about how to be saved than he does about how to live saved. In this verse in Matthew, Jesus was not telling us what we have to do to be saved; he was explaining how his followers could live abundant lives.

We are saved by faith, not by works; but we can’t just sit down and wait to reap our (undeserved) reward. Ask, seek, knock – these are action words. Verbs. They are things we must do if want to receive, find and proceed. We are not saved by our proactive deeds - but can we be saved without them?

If we are going to run the race of faith, we have to do something. We cannot run and stand still at the same time!*