Day 273 - Matthew 7-9

ONE-YEAR JOURNEY OF THE BIBLE
Day 273 - Matthew 7-9 (Unfathomable Wealth Just Waiting for You)
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"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being 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!"  (Matthew 7:7-11)

Jesus put in clear perspective the rationale for God's goodness in answering those who call on Him in prayer by comparing it to an earthly parent's natural inclination to grant his own children's request for food.  Jesus then said that if parents, being evil compared to God, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give good things to those who ask Him!

Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ tells this story of a famous oil field called Yates Pool:

During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn't able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.

Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.

At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.

And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he'd been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? He didn't know the oil was there even though he owned it.

Perhaps you have not known the unlimited wealth of resources available to you and which your heavenly Father wants to give you if only you ask Him.  Now, lest you think that God is like a genie in a bottle who will come at your bidding to grant you all of your capricious and selfish wishes, let me be the first to inform you that God is not like that.  As we've read in our text above, God only gives good gifts, not gifts that will be bad for us.

The best gift of all that God gives to anyone who ask Him is salvation and eternal life in heaven.  The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)."  You don't really want to ask God for a new car or to win the lotto if you have never asked Him to forgive you and give you the gift of eternal life.

Once you receive the gift of eternal life, the Bible says you then become a child of God and co-heir with Christ of all He possesses (Romans 8:17).  Can you think of a greater wealth than that?