IIT UBF - University Bible Fellowship at IIT

Daily Bread

Pray in Faith

Date: Sep. 28, 2015

Passage

Matthew 21:12-22  (ESV)

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

  “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
    you have prepared praise’?”

17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.

20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

Daily Bread

Key Verse: 21:22

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

First, prayer (12-13). The temple in Jesus' time was a place of continuous prayer. Are you praying "without ceasing?" (1Th 5:16-18) The discipline of prayer must be learned. Through life's hardships we are trained to be "like a weaned child with its mother" (Ps 131:2) - we learn that "in quietness and confidence is your strength" (Isa 30:15).

Second, the temple of God (14-17). "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple, and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1Co 3:16) "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit ...You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1Co 6:18-20). God's people form the temple of God.

Third, prayer from the temple in faith (18-22). Christians collectively are "God's temple." Our individual bodies are each also a "temple of the Holy Spirit." Yet, in our weakness "we do not know what we ought to pray for" (Ro 8:26). Thanks be to God that "the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Ro 8:26). When prayer is offered from God's temple, trusting in God's will, there is nothing that God will not do.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, thank you so much for praying without ceasing in me. Lord, you "ever live to make intercession" for the saints. Discipline me so that I may join and rejoice in your unceasing prayer.

One Word: Pray without ceasing.

Daily Bread

Misery of Disobedience

Genesis 34:1-31

Key Verse: 34:30

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.”

Read More

Intro Daily