Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Because “the prayers of all saints” are ever “before the throne” of God (Revelation 8:3-4), we are assured that our supplications are important to Him. As we studied last week, our simple communications are pleasing to God. Moreover, we can be certain that specific requests are not at all offensive to Him. In Acts 12, the Apostle Peter was arrested for preaching the Gospel message of eternal salvation through faith in God the Son, Jesus Christ. Verse 5 says, “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for Him.” Verses 6-17 record the miraculous deliverance (including the humorous detail of Peter having to continue to knock at the gate of the prayer meeting -verse 16). An abiding principle emerges: if we never ask for anything specific, we will never have a specific answer to prayer. Since our Savior God wants to “give good things to them that ask Him” (Matthew 7:11), we should pray specifically for these good things.