A Thought For The Week Of February 9

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7) Matthew 7:1-12 is an interesting set of teachings by Jesus, as it tells us about both our relationship with God and our relationship with others. As a matter of fact, I wonder if I don't discern the weakness (or some might even say the heresy) behind the so-called prosperity gospel here. Matthew 7:7 could easily be used to justify that belief. "Ask and it shall be given to you ..." That seems to be the message of a lot of the prosperity preachers. Just ask to be blessed and you will be. Later, in v.11, there the statement that God will "... give good gifts to those who ask him!" And those gifts are generally assumed by a lot of people to be things like wealth or health. Those are the good things, surely. Except that such a belief seems to be a rather worldly approach - "me centred," when the last thing Jesus would be accused of was being "me centred." And maybe, if we read on, this passage actually teaches us a little bit about the real measure of our faith and how to apply it: ideally, our faith is always about others and never about ourselves. We're not to judge; we're to help. And, of course, the prosperity gospel is rife with judgement. That message seems to be that if you don't have either wealth or health, it must be your fault because you're not asking properly or you don't have enough faith. That's the basic message. But then we look to v.12: "... do to others what you would have them do to you ..." If your faith is "me centred" then its fundamental focus is on what I have rather than on what I give - which is the very opposite of what Jesus is teaching here.  So, how then do we interpret "ask and it will be given to you ..."? It must refer to seeking blessings not for ourselves but for others. We're to always act for others while we let go of ourselves. Then we're following the teaching of Jesus. There's still the problem that I may ask for healing for someone, and the healing doesn't come; they still die. But - they will have been blessed. It is a blessing to know that others are caring for you and about you; thinking of you and praying for you. So, it seems, what we're to ask for and seek is blessings for others and not blessings for ourselves.