How God Expresses His Love for UsSample

The God Who Loves When We Ask

God’s Story

Jesus tells his 12 friends that they are heading to Jerusalem, where he will be tortured and killed but then raised to life on the third day. As they get closer to the city, Jesus sends two of them ahead to get a donkey and her colt. As he rides into the city on the colt, a crowd gathers in celebration, laying cloaks and tree branches on the road before him and shouting, “Hosanna!” Heaven’s King has come, just like the prophets foretold.

Jesus goes straight to the temple and drives out the merchants who have set up shop in the only place Gentiles could worship his Father. He won’t tolerate their worship being hindered. He heals the sick — they have been barred from the temple too. The children shout for joy, which inflames the religious leaders.

Jesus confronts them — they’ve been poor managers of God’s vineyard. God is going to take his kingdom from them and give it to people who will live out the kingdom life. They continue to try to trap him with minutiae of the law, and he out maneuvers them at every turn. They ask him to identify God’s greatest commandment. He does: Love God.

The Pharisees’ teachings are deadly — they teach about following rules without relating to God. This is the gravest of deceptions, and Jesus rebukes them strongly.

The King’s Heart

As Jesus passed by two blind men, they shouted from within the crowd, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” (Matthew 20:30).

They shouted and shouted, and Jesus stopped. But he did something interesting: He asked them what they wanted.

Jesus knew what these two men wanted. He is God, the all-knowing One. And it was obvious that the men were blind. Jesus’ knowledge is complete, and their need was apparent. Yet Jesus asked them to tell him their need anyway. They asked for their sight, and he touched their eyes and restored it.

Our needs are just as obvious to the all-knowing One. But our good God values our asking too. He loves the intimacy that grows when we tell him what we need and ask him for it. He delights in responding. And he delights in the closeness that develops when we realize that he has, indeed, heard and answered us.

Insight

It may have been customary for a wedding host to provide clothes for the guests. The guests in the parable Jesus told were taken off the streets. The man who wasn’t wearing wedding clothes was thrown out because he had insulted the host, who had made the clothes available for everyone (see Matthew 22:1 – 14).