Matthew 7:7-11: Good gifts

Matthew 7:7-11

7 Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will open for you.
8 Everyone who asks, receives. He who seeks, finds. And, for anyone who knocks, the door will open.
9 Which of you men, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone?
10 Or, if he asks for a fish, would give him a snake?
11 So if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more is your heavenly Father able and willing to give good things to those who ask him?

Drop everything for Christ's sake! Stop dawdling. What are you afraid of? Is God evil like humans, who nevertheless know how to give their kids nice things? Of course not. You are right to concede that you are unworthy of drawing near God and his messenger son, Jesus. But, stop worrying. Ask God, and Jesus will open the door.

Let go of your way, which "seems right to a man," but which reaches a dead end (Proverb 14:12).

God doesn't want mere religious ceremony from you. What he accepts is "a broken spirit – a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalms 51:17).

Clearly, when Jesus addressed his new followers as "evil," he wasn't necessarily talking about obvious criminals. He was addressing your average Moe. In modern American lingo, he could have said, "Even though you are a bunch of sick pups, you know how to give your kids good gifts."

Also, Jesus is addressing people's fear of getting too near God. They are even afraid to ask him for anything – usually because they are conscious of their own sin and unworthiness.  But Jesus assures us that God will not pull a bait-and-switch scam on us. No one who sincerely comes to God in the name of Jesus will be treated badly. Yes, we in 21st Century America may be familiar with these points. But in First Century Palestine, Jesus was urging his new disciples to step into a brand new universe. It would be better if some of us realized that that is still what Jesus is urging his potential followers to do. When God gives a gift, it is very good. Very, very good.

In fact the parallel passage at Luke 11:13 shows that the writer of Luke thought the gift most to be desired is the Holy Spirit – because, after all, with that gift grace abounds and everything necessary will be "added unto you."

Luke 11:13

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Though the typical person tends to avoid lifestyle change, preferring the old, "reliable" way, that way is the road to hell. Take the plunge and let Jesus put you in your right mind. It's delusional to keep preferring the pain you know to the pain you don't know.

Jesus is saying, "Don't be silly. How is God not going to be good to those who seek him?"

Even so, we must accept that not everyone may receive God's gifts, in particular his gift of the Spirit.

Hebrews 6:4-6

4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

My take is that those who fall away here are people who have enjoyed the social benefits of being among real believers but then are found to be without their wedding garment. They don't belong among true Christians because they are unable to receive the light. So, after a while, they return to their old ways. "Once saved, forever saved" still applies. But some "saved" are not saved because not called by God.

Though such people may have experienced the Spirit in others at close hand – that is, within the congregation – they cannot have received the Spirit, even though they were baptized and hands were laid on them in order to convey the Spirit. They went through the forms, but did not receive the gift. Why? God's sovereign decision is why.

Yet at this point

we should beware assuming that someone who relapses into some obsessive compulsion, such as alcoholism and addiction, is beyond redemption.

Jesus is fully aware of the chains of the "besetting sin" (Hebrews 12:1-2), even on the born again. A person with the disorder of alcoholism or drug addiction may be a sincere Christian whose affliction still drags him downward.

But, if he wants to be clean and sober, then the problem belongs to God. In quite a few cases, twelve-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous have proved very beneficial, including to born-again believers, even though these programs do not endorse any particular theology or religion.

What of the born-again person who dies of her fleshly illness, as in the case of a drug addict who dies of an overdose? First of all, when it comes to any soul, we cannot say how God will judge. We may assume that a hateful, brutal tyrant has been cast into hell, but that soul's fate is not our call. God is the judge. And if someone has fought addiction and lost, that person is not to be summed up by his disease or disorder. What the Bible verses at the bottom of this page are talking about is the person who lives to party in a base sense, and who has little remorse about it.

Another point is that a born-gain person's inner self has been born of God. That part will be saved. The part of himself identified as the flesh will be burned up with the straw. BUT, those who have no higher self – who have not truly repented of their misdeeds and turned to Jesus – must perish in the flames. The Bible verses below are not talking about people who love God but slipped up in their addiction. They are referring to people who never turned to God, preferring their rowdy self-gratification.

I also suggest that early Christian writers were not all fully cognizant of how difficult is the disorder of addiction. I do not say they were wrong by promoting the idea that trust in Jesus should relieve such burdens, not at all. But they certainly did not have the medical knowledge available today and may have thought that one should simply stop drinking to excess now that one was Christian. They did not realize that the addict and alcoholic faces a difficult battle which is not so easily won.

You will notice below that not only is drunkenness mentioned, so is sexual acting out.

On the last point, we Americans have always been very confused. We should consider that sexual acting out up until very recent times meant severe consequences: very serious diseases (thus the need for monogamy) and babies born to single women who usually had to rely on men to care for them and their children (no artificial birth control). Of course even today these results may still occur.

Thus sex was seen in Bible times as a very dangerous matter – which it was. So those who did not rein in their sex drives were liable to cause other people a considerable amount of harm. But, we all know that God put the sex drive in humans. And we also know that it is the natural way to propagate the human species. Further, raising children can be good for people, improving their spiritual maturity.

So the main point to draw from all that is the question: what is the impact of one's sexual activity on other people? Does self-gratification tend to the injury of another person? Much has to do with motive. Check your motive.

But even if the motive seems, subjectively, OK, that doesn't mean there is nothing to watch out for. Many people have tried to be kindly, if not conformist, in their sex lives, only to find that their sexual desires – especially when stimulated by drugs – get out of control and lead to some sad situations.

Also, because erotic pleasure is so potent, seemingly harmless behavior may develop into the bondage of obsessive compulsion. Jesus came to liberate us, not to send us back to slavery.

Again, if a person is born again, then God has accepted responsibility for that person – even though afflicted with a sexual disorder. If not born again, then it may be so that she has had no desire to turn her life around.

Galatians 5:19-21

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Revelation 21:7-8

7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

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Mt. 7:12. The golden rule