The Lord Needs It

...Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ ” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.

Mark 11:1b–6

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As Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the southeast, He arrives at Bethany and from there sends two of His disciples on ahead to the next village, called Bethphage. Jesus tells these two disciples that they will find a colt tied up in that village and He charges them with bringing it back to Him.

Now, Jesus is no dummy. He knows that people may question His disciples taking this young donkey that does not belong to them, so He tells them exactly what to say if they are questioned. And of course, they were. In fact, Luke’s gospel reveals to us that the people who question these disciples are more than just bystanders, they are the donkey’s owners. And no doubt they think they are being robbed.

‌‌But look at what Jesus told His disciples to say. The two disciples say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.” And that was enough. Whether the donkey’s owners knew Jesus by reputation or whether they were followers of Christ or whether they had never met Him before, we don’t know. What we do know beyond a shadow of doubt is that “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly” was enough for them.

If Jesus asked you to give, to contribute something of yours to His kingdom, would you do it? If the Holy Spirit whispered to your heart and said “I need you to give that to me do with what I will,” would you obey His prompting? Is there anything you wouldn’t be willing to give if Jesus asked for it? ‌‌Is “the Lord needs it” enough for you?

Peter's Prayer

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Matthew 14:29b-30

Many sermons have been preached on this passage of Scripture focusing on Peter’s faith, or Peter’s doubt or Jesus’ ability to walk on water. But I want to focus on Peter’s prayer.‌‌ 

It’s so short, and so unlike how we normally think of prayer that it's easy to miss. But verse 30 tells us that beginning to sink, Peter cried out “Lord, save me!” A three word prayer. Yet, an effective prayer. A prayer that God heard and answered. It says that “immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.”

There isn’t much to parse out or dissect in a three word prayer. We don’t need to look at the original language or see how any of the words function in the sentence. Yet there is a powerful principle of prayer here for you if you will receive it.

‌‌Consider Peter’s situation. He is sinking. Now, it doesn't take a grown man long to sink in water, so Peter had very little time to formulate a perfect prayer. Peter didn’t have time for impressive words or arguments. He had to get a prayer out quick! And he did. And it worked.

‌‌What I want you to see is that prayer doesn’t always have to polished. It doesn’t have to be eloquent. It is perfectly acceptable for you to simply cry out to God for help. In fact, that is exactly what some circumstances call for. There are certain situations in life that call for immediate prayer... a prayer of the moment. Sometimes you can’t afford to wait until you get back home to your prayer closet to pray about something. Sometimes you have to pray right now!

There will be times in your life when you will only have a few seconds to pray, or times that you will only be able to pray in your mind as someone is talking to you. Times when all you have time to pray is “Lord, save me” or “Help me, Lord!” And I want you to know that God hears those prayers!

As a parent I know that whenever one of my children has yelled “Help!” my wife and I both came running. That “help!” was an incredibly effective way of getting our attention and getting a quick response out of us. An entire paragraph of well-reasoned requests for assistance could not have gotten us there as fast as “Help!”

So, don’t discount the power of that type of prayer in a moment of crisis. Don’t discount the power of crying out to God for help.

Purify Yourself

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

‌1 John 3:2–3

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This passage tells us two important things about the coming of Jesus. The first is that when He comes we shall be made like Him. What a glorious thought! That we Christians, those who have strived all our lives to be Christ-like (for that is what the word 'Christian' means) will one day achieve our goal and finally be like Him.

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The second thing we glean from this passage is found in verse three when it says that “all who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.”

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The great Christian thinker A.W. Tozer, likened this purification process to the preparation a bride undergoes for her wedding day. ‌Before her wedding a bride usually takes great care to prepare herself and her appearance for her husband. She has hair and makeup appointments scheduled from early in the morning until the time of the wedding. She has people there to help her with her hair and to help her get her dress on and to style her. She wants to look just right. ‌And Tozer asks, “should not the church of Jesus Christ be dressed worthy of her bridegroom, even as He is dressed? Pure—even as He is pure?” [A. W. Tozer, The Apostles’ Creed (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2023), 98–99.]

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This is why “all who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” Because we want to be found pleasing to our husband, pleasing to the Lord Jesus when He comes.

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So, let me ask. What are you currently purifying about your life? It’s a constant struggle to be holy. All of us are works in progress, and we should always be working on something. Otherwise we may not be making any progress. So, find something in your life right now to purify yourself from.