matthew from luke 11

Have you ever thought to yourself, "I'm glad I'm not God!" Too much responsibility! In the 2003 movie "Bruce Almighty," Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) gains God’s divine powers b...

He told us to beg God not to put us to a test, presumably because we would fail it.

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.

Desire is something no child has to be taught. Early in the developmental process, most of a child’s desires center around physical needs being met or objects that attract interest. If a child is secu...

The interplay between listening and obedience expresses itself in our lives all the time. Sound has the ability to “command” us, to summon a response in us, forcing us to take notice.  Unlike visual ...

It would seem that hearing is but a narrow channel pouring into the deep sea of doing. Yet the etymological dictionary taught me that the sharp distinction between hearing and doing is the result of h...

Context Jesus’ lesson on prayer in Luke’s gospel comes not in the context of a longer sermon (as with Matthew’s parallel in the Sermon on the Mount), but rather in response to a request from one of h...

Lord Jesus Christ, you have said to us “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” We admit those times when we fail to ask you for good things – that it can be easier to trust you wit...

Traditional (Anglican) Our Father, who art in heaven,     hallowed be thy Name,     thy kingdom come,     thy will be done,         on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily ...

The following story is told about the Chicago Bears’ coach, Mike Ditka and one of his most famous players: One day Ditka was about to deliver a locker room pep talk and he looked up and saw defensiv...

There is an invisible pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens it. And the more heightened the desire, the greater our satisfaction will ultimately be. It ...

In her engaging work, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes the nature of The Lord’s Prayer: To borrow from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lord’s Prayer is our “yes to God’s earth.” The Lor...

Dallas Willard gave a series of lectures on the kingdom of God. In one, he discussed the popularity of the phrase, “The truth will set you free” by putting it in its proper kingdom context: The whole...

The phrase “kingdom of heaven,” which we find frequently in Matthew’s Gospel where the others have “kingdom of God,” does not refer to a place, called “heaven,” where God’s people will go after death....

I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it, began reading again...

In the first chapter of her book, Get Out of Your Head , author Jennie Allen shares a vulnerable and honest moment from her own life about just how hard it can be to focus in a world of distraction...

Steve Jobs was one of the biggest somebodies of our time. He said, "Most people never pick up the phone and ask, and that's what separates the people who do things from the people who just dr...

First Chronicles 4:9-10 could be forgiven for being called the text that roared, once Bruce Wilkinson got his hands on it and wrote a little book called The Prayer of Jabez. This book, which was relea...

Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom.

When we listen to and follow Jesus, who lived in continual dependence on his Father, we become convinced of our poverty as men and women. We realize our absolute neediness. We are all beggars. Father ...