Seasons greetings to you my dear friend, I hope you are having a great holiday season! In this week’s post, I am going to exhort us with the words of Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 11 verses 11 through 13.
Jesus Christ, the Most Holy, most precious, and the very reason for the season who left His throne in heaven to come to be with us so that we could have a relationship with Him! His name is forever praised, Amen.
The book of Luke chapter 11 gives us insight into the kind of relationship Jesus had with His disciples- a sharing relationship. Dr. Luke tells us how Jesus’s disciples would ask a question and Jesus would respond to them with the simplest illustrations as possible. Luke 11:11 was Jesus’ response to His disciples’ request to teach them about prayer.
Jesus said to them, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead“- Luke 11:11. This verse points to a number of things:
- Prayer involves asking and receiving : Remember, the disciples had asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, so Jesus question to them in verse 11 is more or less for them and for us to internalize and think it through. From His paradoxical/rhetorical question we can coin out that there is a child asking his father or parent for something and also a father or a parent responding to the child’s request. Overall, there is asking and receiving in the place of prayer, it was never designed to be one-sided.
Then verse 12 goes ahead to reiterate Jesus’ message in verse 11, He said, Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion– Luke 11:12, this leads me to the second highlight of our exhortation today.
We Are Always Blessed in the place of Prayer: I have had instances where and when my parents could not necessarily give me the things I was asking for but still they never gave me things that would hurt me. They tried their best to provide things that were close to my request or did things differently. My parents never deliberately hurt me, and I believe this is what Jesus Christ is pointing us to here. We have biological parents or non-biological parents that care so much for us and would always respond to our request with love. This same way, in the place of prayer, every single time we speak to God, every single moment we spend in His presence conversing with Him, we always leave there blessed. He may not give us the exact things that we ask for, He may not give us our requests at the exact time that we want it but God still blesses us. Take a moment to think deeply about it, He blesses us with His presence, blesses us with faith to keep going while we trust Him, He blesses us with joy, He blesses us with other things that we may not even recognize that we needed. No one spends time in prayer without receiving something from the Lord.
And finally, He said to them, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” – Luke 11:13. This verse points us to the fact that:
God gives the best gift: Something that is usually omitted or not exactly emphasized from this verse is the good gift our Father in heaven would give us if we ask. We are oftentimes so focused on that thing we want or need at that moment and expect it to be God’s best for us. From this verse, we can see that God’s best gift to us and for us is Himself – The Holy Spirit. God loves us so much that He gave Himself to us for free, gave us access to Him every day, every time. Do you know what it means for a king or a dignitary to give you free access to Him 24 hours a day all year round? I do not even give everyone that much access talk more of a King. But this is not the case with the King of Kings, He loves us endlessly and does not want us to be helpless, so He has given us a helper the Holy Spirit – John 14:26. He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us in our weaknesses, help us when we are clueless, help us every single time we need help. So, my dear friend, have you received the Holy Spirit?
As I conclude this week’s post, the sole message for us in Luke 11:13, is a reminder to us that as much as our flawed earthly parents or friends and loved ones can give us great gifts, our father in heaven has given us the ultimate best gift ever – only if we ask and receive from Him.