Can we really ask God for anything we want?

Matthew 7.7-11, Luke 11.9-13, John 14.13-14, 15.7, 16.4.

These passages are found in the middle of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, in Jesus’s teaching on prayer requests in Luke, and as part of Jesus’s Last Supper lesson in John. Obviously the Matthew and Luke bits line up more neatly than the John bits, but the same idea is found in the John verses.

I tend to summarize this idea as “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” If we want something from Jesus, ask! It’s okay for us to do that. He does take prayer requests.

Matthew 7.7-11 KWL

7“Ask!—it’ll be given you².

Look!—you’ll² find it.

Knock!—it’ll be unlocked for you².

8For all who ask receive,

who seek find,

who knock God’ll unlock for.

9Same as any of you².

Your² child will ask you² for bread;

you² won’t give them¹ a cobblestone.

10Or they’ll¹ ask you² for fish;

you² won’t give them¹ a snake.

11So if you’re² evil,

yet knew to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your² heavenly Father

give good things to those who ask him?”

Luke 11.9-13 KWL

9 “And I tell you²: Ask!—it’ll be given you².

Look!—you’ll² find it.

Knock!—it’ll be unlocked for you².

10For all who ask receive,

who seek find,

who knock God’ll unlock for.

11Any parent from among you²:

Your² child will ask for fish,

and instead of fish do you² give them¹ a snake?

12Or they’ll¹ ask for an egg;

do you² give them¹ a scorpion?

13So if you² evildoers

knew to give good gifts to your² children,

how much more will your heavenly Father

give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

John 14.13-14 KWL

13“You² can ask whatever in my name.

I’ll do it so, in the Son, the Father can be thought well of.

14When what you² ask me is in my name,

I’ll do it.”

John 15.7 KWL

“When you² stay in me

and my words stay in you²,

whenever you² want, ask!

It’ll happen for you².”

John 16.24 KWL

“Till now you’ve² never asked anything in my name.

Ask!—and you’ll² receive,

so your² joy can be fulfilled.”

This needs to be said, ’cause some folks don’t entirely believe it is okay to ask God for stuff.

When I was a kid, I’d ask my parents for stuff, sorta like the kids in Jesus’s examples. Except those kids asked for bread, fish, and eggs; and I’d ask for a Commodore 64. Sometimes my parents gave me what I asked for. Other times, not so much. Computers weren’t cheap.

When I got persistent—when I wouldn’t take no for an answer, and kept right on asking, seeking, knocking—they’d respond, “Would you stop asking?” Not always because they didn’t want me to have these things. Sometimes they did, but they wanted me to earn money and buy it myself.

And sometimes they’d pull this sort of evil stunt: Say yes, just so I’d suffer the consequences.

Calvin and Hobbes, 25 May 1986. Calvin’s mom teaches him an unnecessary “little lesson.” GoComics

The punchline—“Trusting parents can be hazardous to your health”—is exactly right. Calvin’s mom thought she was teaching him a valuable lesson. She was… but she didn’t do it in a kind way. She did it in a cruel way: She didn’t warn him away from the consequences. She let him suffer them, and suffer ’em even more by surprise. And because humans will do this, sometimes we wonder whether God’ll do likewise: God says yes, and we ironically find out we didn’t want this at all. Meanwhile, up in heaven, he chuckles at our hubris. Ps 2.4

No. That is not how God works. If our flawed plans have unintended consequences, he warns us of those consequences, like he did when Israel demanded a king. He’s not a dick. He’s not secretly evil, plotting our downfall for his amusement or entertainment. Read the Prophets: Why suffer when you don’t have to? Ek 33.11 Turn to God and live!

God wants to give good things to his children, Mt 7.11 and for us to experience the joy of getting what we ask for. Jn 16.24 He wants to give us his kingdom. Lk 12.32 Starting with answered prayer requests.

Jesus’s first two students.

John 1.35-39.

Honestly, the gospel of John doesn’t line up with the other gospels, which we call synoptics ’cause they often share the same point of view. John wasn’t really meant to: The author had likely read the other gospels, or at least Luke; and was filling in all their blank spots. So when the synoptics make it sound like Jesus first gathered his students in the Galilee, John corrects that: Jesus met ’em in Judea. John the baptist actually sent him his first two.

John 1.35-37 KWL

35 The next day John, and two of his students,

were standing in that place again.

36 Looking at Jesus walking by,

John said, “Look, God’s lamb!”

37 John’s two students heed what he says,

and follow Jesus.

The word μαθητής/mathitís, “student,” is regularly translated “disciple.” And plenty of Christians have the false idea that a disciple is somehow different from a student. A disciple, they claim, has a deep relationship with their teacher. They’re not just trying to learn from their master; they wanna be just like their master, like an apprentice. They wanna adopt the master’s lifestyle, not just their teachings. And other such profound-sounding rubbish.

Yeah, rubbish. Because any student can become huge fans of their teacher and try to mimic them in all sorts of ways. I saw it in college with my fellow students; I saw it in my own students when I became a teacher. Some students get endlessly fascinated with their teacher’s personal lives, and wanna know what makes them tick. They’re still trying to figure out their own personalities, and figure this is the guy to emulate. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes not!

In fact, there are all kinds of student-teacher relationships. Sometimes they’re all about academics, sometimes lifestyle, and sometimes a little of both. Sometimes teachers think, “I want successors, and that’s what I’m training,” and sometimes all we’re thinking is, “They need to know this stuff,” and nothing more. Certain teachers covet eager, worshipful pupils, and are jealous of other teachers who have ’em; they wanna be worshiped. Some of these relationships are very healthy; some are sick ’n twisted.

But saying, “A disciple is different from a student,” is rubbish. They’re synonyms.

And John and Jesus’s students were seeking religious instruction. They were products of the first-century Judean culture, in which religious kids sought a master, a רַ֣ב/rav, who’d teach them how to follow God, and be a devout Pharisee. (Or Samaritan, or Qumrani. Sadducees weren’t so worried about it.) So they sought a scribe who knew his bible, knew the Law and how to interpet it.

And if you were particularly fortunate, your rav would also be a prophet, filled with the Holy Spirit who spoke to ’em personally. Who might even grant you the Spirit, and now you could hear God. Wouldn’t that be awesome? (Forgetting, of course, people back then were in the nasty habit of killing prophets. But hey—hearing God!)

So when John identified Jesus as God’s lamb, you know his students immediately thought, “Well if John hears God, but John says this is the guy…” and off they went.

Don’t be surprised if they hate you. They hated Jesus too.

Matthew 10.24-25, Luke 6.40, John 13.16, 15.18-25.

Today’s passages get frequently taken out of context by Christian jerks. So let’s deal with them up front.

Jerks either deliberately try to offend, or don’t care that they do offend. And there are a lot of Christians, religious or not, who behave this way. They want people to be outraged. They want division and strife. They don’t care that these are works of the flesh; they’re not that fruitful anyway, and are way more interested in doctrinal purity than goodness and kindness and grace. So when people get angry, they perversely assume they’re doing something right. After all, didn’t Jesus say we’re blessed when people condemn and rage against us like the ancients did the prophets? Lk 6.22-23 Everybody hates you! Rejoice!

Of course they’re going about it the wrong way. If we have God’s mysteries and share them, yet we don’t do so in love (and no, tough love doesn’t count), we’re an annoying noise; we’re nothing, and gain nothing. 1Co 13.1-3 You might play the best music on your new 150-decibel sound system, but people are gonna hate it because it’s too loud, and it’s 2 a.m. In the same way, people don’t hate Christian jerks because they’re Christian, so much as because they’re jerks. So let’s not be. Let’s be kind.

Jesus’s statements here are not for jerks. But man alive are jerks quick to quote them. “Oh, oh! I’m being persecuted. Well, Jesus said it’s to be expected. They hated him; they’ll hate us.”

Yeah, but they hated Jesus for entirely different reasons. They hated Jesus because he called BS on ’em. Exposed their fake piety. Loved people they didn’t consider worth loving. Objected to their loopholes. And worst of all: There was supernatural evidence he was right, because you can’t just cure people on Sabbath unless God endorses such behavior. Their doctrine was undermined by YHWH himself… which is why they insisted Jesus’s cures couldn’t be God things, and had to somehow be devilish.

So when Jesus brought up persecution in his Olivet Discourse, he reminded them this shouldn’t catch them by surprise. The ancients persecuted the prophets; their contemporaries hassled Jesus himself. Stands to reason people were eventually gonna come after them too. Again, not because they’re being dicks about the gospel: Because God’s kingdom runs contrary to their comfortable status quo.

So since they went after Jesus, don’t think we’re exempt. He’s the teacher; he’s the master; we’re just his apostles and students and slaves. Like he says.

Matthew 10.24-25 KWL

24 “A student isn’t above the teacher, nor a slave above their master.

25 It’s fine for the student to become like their teacher, and the slave like their master.

But if people call the homeowner ‘Baal Zevúl,’

how much more those of his house?”

 

Luke 6.40 KWL

“A student isn’t above the teacher,

and everyone so repaired will be like their teacher.”

 

John 13.16 KWL

“Amen amen! I promise you a slave isn’t greater than their master,

nor an apostle greater than their sender.”

Out of context, this passage is also occasionally used by false teachers to make the claim they’ve studied Jesus so much, so extensively, they’re just as authoritative as he. Which everyone should instantly recognize as rubbish, but you’d be surprised how many Christians are total suckers for a winsome cult leader. Everybody co-works with Jesus, but nobody co-leads with him. He’s Messiah; he’s king; he’s above every other name. No matter how wise his followers might get… and the smart ones are wise enough to stay humble and not pull rank.

Redefining joy “because happiness is fleeting.”

Ask anyone what joy means and they’ll tell you what the dictionary usually tells you: It’s happiness. It’s pleasure. You feel really, really good.

Ask a Christian and they’ll give you the very same answer. That is, till you bring up the fruit of the Spirit. Then suddenly the definition of joy changes to contentment. To being okay with whatever befalls us in life. To gritting our teeth and buggering on. All the happiness gets sucked right out of the meaning.

What’s wrong with these people? What, have they never experienced joy before?

No, they have! The problem isn’t that they don’t know what joy is, nor what it feels like. The problem is they don’t understand fruit of the Spirit. Christians have some really odd, wrong ideas about what it’s like. So these odd ideas worm their way backwards into the definitions of the individual fruits, and distort what we mean by love or any of the emotions encouraged by the Spirit.

Emotions, y’see, come and go. We all know this. Joy fades; love fades; compassion fades; patience wears off. We don’t want ’em to, but they do. That’s why we strive to get ’em back. Which is good! We should want to continually love, be patient, have compassion, and experience joy.

The fact these things fade, should inform our definition of the Spirit’s fruit: Fruit can fade. Because it absolutely can. In fact you’ve seen it happen in various Christians. (Likely seen it in yourself.) We don’t just acquire the Spirit’s fruit, then have it forever. Jesus told us we have to stay in him:

John 15.1-8 KWL

1 “I’m the true grapevine. My Father’s the gardener.

2 He lifts off the ground my every branch which doesn’t bear fruit.

He prunes every branch which does, so it can bear even more fruit.

3 You’ve already been trimmed by the message I gave you.

4 Stay in me and I in you, like a branch which can’t bear fruit all by itself

when it doesn’t stay in the grapevine—you never produce when you don’t stay in me.

5 I’m the grapevine. You’re the branches.

Those who stay in me and I in them, produce a lot of fruit.

You can’t do anything apart from me.

6 When anyone won’t stay in me, they’re thrown out like a stray branch:

They wither, are gathered up, tossed into fire, and burned.

7 When you stay in me and my words stay in you,

whenever you want something, ask! It’ll happen for you.

8 My Father is glorified by it when you produce a lot of fruit,

and become my students.”

The only way fruit’s gonna grow—or even continue to stay alive!—is when our branches are attached to the grapevine. We gotta stay plugged into Jesus, maintain our relationship with him, and work on this relationship religiously. If we take Jesus for granted or blow off the relationship, it stands to reason our fruit’s gonna wither.

But somehow popular Christian culture is under the delusion the Spirit’s fruit never fades. ’Cause if it’s from the Holy Spirit, it must be perfect, and last forever. Like wax fruit. But if you’ve ever accidentally taken a bite of wax fruit, it’s nasty. (Especially if people didn’t dust it. Yuck.) Wax fruit only looks good, and impresses people who aren’t paying real attention. Same as all the fake fruit Christians try to pass off as the real thing—which never spoils, never fades, never withers, but isn’t real.

You know, like the redefinitions of “joy” which generate fake plastic smiles instead of real happiness and pleasure.

“Lay down your life” means what now?

John 15.13.

John 15.13 NIV

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

I know; George Benson’s popular 1977 song “Greatest Love of All” (which Whitney Houston remade in 1985) said learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. Obviously the lyricist didn’t read her bible, and figured the way to feel best about herself was to value herself way above her friends. (Didn’t I just write about how people are inherently selfish?) No surprise, popular culture gets it wrong again.

Translators are awfully fond of phrasing this verse Yoda-style: Object-verb-subject “Greater love has no one,” rather than the usual subject-verb-object “No one has greater love” of today’s English. (The NRSV phrases it normally.) It’s ’cause the King James Version is the most familiar form of the verse, and if translators make it too different for no good reason, people balk. I think clear, readable English is a darned good reason. But that’s me.

Anyway. Right after the average preacher quotes this verse, it’s immediately pointed out, “Jesus demonstrated this very truth himself: He laid down his life for his friends. He died for their sins on the cross. He died for all of us, because he considers all of us his friends. There’s no greater love than Jesus’s love.”

There is no greater love than Jesus’s, but when Jesus made this statement, he wasn’t talking about his soon-coming death on the cross. He was talking about submitting to one another, Ep 5.21 instead of looking out for ourselves. It’s about living for one another. Not dying for one another.