A Bible Reading: Matthew 21. 18 - 22
Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
A Thought
If you listen to the daily News bulletins, ‘unprecedented’ seems to be the word of the moment. I like words and their meanings, so I decided to look it up in the dictionary. My large tome came up with ‘unprecedented’ meaning ‘without precedent’. Not too helpful! Fortunately, it added a second meaning: ‘unheard of’. That’s more like it. I know what that means. To clarify and dig deeper, I then moved on to ‘precedent’ to discover ‘an act or incident that may be used as an example in dealing with or justifying subsequent similar cases’. This got me thinking.
The Bible is full of unprecedented events, things that were previously unheard of. Let me give you a few examples: the building of Noah’s ark and the great flood; an elderly, childless couple, Abraham and Sarah, gave birth to a son, Isaac; Moses led the Israelites through the parted Red Sea with the Egyptians in hot pursuit; in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all survived being thrown into a fiery furnace and walked out unharmed, and the apostle Peter had a miraculous escape from prison in answer to the prayers of the other believers.
These people all had some things in common. They believed in God, they believed God answered prayer, and they believed that prayer could also bring about extraordinary, unprecedented events. I encourage you in these unprecedented days to join together in prayer that we might see this mountain of Covid-19 around the world swiftly brought under control.
A Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you hear us when we pray in faith. We pray that this mountain of Covid-19 will be removed and eradicated from this world in the powerful name of Jesus.
Amen.
To find out more about some of the Bible’s unprecedented events, you can read the following: Genesis 6-8, Genesis 17ff, Exodus 13: 17ff, Daniel 3, Acts 12: 1-19
Commenti