Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure

Answering Our Prayers: Matthew 7:7-20

Published May 8, 2026 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Matthew 7:7-20 (CEV)

⁷Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. ⁸Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks. ⁹Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked for some bread? ¹⁰Would you give your child a snake if the child asked for a fish? ¹¹As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.

¹²Treat others as you want them to treat you. This is what the Law and the Prophets are all about.

¹³Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate. ¹⁴But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it.

¹⁵Watch out for false prophets! They dress up like sheep, but inside they are wolves who have come to attack you. ¹⁶You can tell what they are by what they do. No one picks grapes or figs from thornbushes. ¹⁷A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned. ²⁰You can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.

Read Matthew 7:7-20 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

In one of the most famous parts of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we find one of the most amazing promises that Jesus shared during His earthly ministry. Within this section of the message, many people have found both encouragement as well as reason for doubt.

This section begins with Jesus saying, “Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks.” (v. 7-8)

The self-help movement within Christianity sprang up around these two verses because in them, Jesus shares a repeatable process and principle. I think these two verses are also incredibly popular because they work without Jesus as well. When looking at these two verses, there is very little here that points to Jesus.

But Jesus hasn’t finished sharing on this topic. He continues by saying, “Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked for some bread? Would you give your child a snake if the child asked for a fish? As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.” (v. 9-11)

With this explanation, Jesus brings faith into the discussion, while He also brings in a framework for understanding how God answers prayer. In these three verses explaining this concept, Jesus helps us understand the answers we may receive that are not what we would have wanted. All the “No’s”, “Wait’s”, and substitution answers may feel like God is ignoring our requests, but this famous set of five verses holds the key to how God answers prayer.

The key to understanding how God answers our asking, seeking, and knocking has to do with what our request is, and the best possible response. While Jesus rhetorically asks whether a parent would give a bad gift to a child when he/she asks for something they need, the same could be said in reverse. What parent would give their child something that will harm them if the child asked for it? If you knew a gift would injure your child, would you still give them the gift?

God, being the perfect parent, knows what the best response to every request we ask, every goal we seek, and every door we knock on. While it might feel like He is rejecting or ignoring our requests, these responses may be Him telling us that the timing isn’t right, that we need to grow more, or that what we are asking for will ultimately harm us in the long run. Faith comes into play regarding whether we are willing to accept His answer to our request.

And this promise isn’t reserved for just Christians. God loves everyone He created, and He “is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.” (v. 11b)

So while we are called to ask, to seek, and to knock, we are also called to trust God the Father’s guidance and His direction. He will open doors that will help us; He will help us find the best things for our situation, and He is happy to give us things that truly will bless us. He loves us, and He cares for our eternal future above all else.

This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!

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Worthless Fish: Matthew 13:47-50

Published May 7, 2026 in Audio Journal Entries

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As Jesus begins to wrap up sharing a short series of parables about the Kingdom of heaven, He decides to share one more example. However, too often we focus on only the two preceding parables, and we stop before diving into the third one. Unfortunately, if we stop short of reading this third parable, we run the risk of misunderstanding where Jesus was going in what He was sharing with the disciples. While this third parable has some less than ideal details, and it is not all that appealing to think of you and I as fish, this parable is a fascinating conclusion to this set of parables Jesus shared while He was alone with the disciples.

Let’s dive into what this parable teaches, and unpack what we can learn from Jesus’ concluding illustration. Our parable is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 13, and we will be reading it from the Good News Translation. Jumping into Jesus’ sequence of parables in verse 47, Jesus starts another parable by saying:

⁴⁷“Also, the Kingdom of heaven is like this. Some fishermen throw their net out in the lake and catch all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸When the net is full, they pull it to shore and sit down to divide the fish: the good ones go into the buckets, the worthless ones are thrown away. ⁴⁹It will be like this at the end of the age: the angels will go out and gather up the evil people from among the good ⁵⁰and will throw them into the fiery furnace, where they will cry and gnash their teeth.

After reading this parable, I can easily see why many people would rather ignore its presence. This parable isn’t all that pleasant because Jesus explains and describes the fate of evil people. It is much nicer to focus on those who are welcomed in to God’s kingdom and to intentionally not think about those who will ultimately be lost.

However, it is worth paying attention to this parable, especially its challenging theme, because if we focus in on this parable and theme, we can catch the lessons aimed at helping us avoid the fate being described.

As I read Jesus’ words in this parable, one word stood out to me more than the rest. The word that jumped out at me was the word “worthless”. This is the way this translation describes the fish that are thrown away. When randomly looking at a few different translations, we find that worthless and bad are the most common descriptive words used to describe these fish.

While it might seem obvious to throw the worthless fish away, remember that this is a parable, and Jesus immediately explains this parable in no uncertain terms. The fish represent people and at the end of the age, angels will sort the good and evil people and those who are evil will be separated and cast into the fiery furnace.

This leads us to a question: What makes someone worthless in God’s eyes?

Our parable gives us a solid clue. The fish which are described as worthless represent people who are described as evil. So sin and evil actions make us worthless – or at least that is one logical conclusion we could draw from this. While it is true that sin does cheapen our worth, what Jesus ultimately did defied all of this logic.

When we as a race were bound up in sin, through our nature, our choices, our desires, and our hearts, Jesus came to give us a choice. Jesus did not have to come, but from before anyone else had even thought of you, the Godhead decided together that Jesus would come. This is illogical because Jesus died for a worthless, sin-filled race of created beings, and only because Jesus did this do we have worth in God’s eyes.

Through Jesus, the Godhead reattached worth into humanity, and because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we have the choice of accepting Jesus’ gift of worth into our lives, or stay living worthlessly in sin. Sin does make us worthless, but Jesus came to remind us that our value is not in what we currently are, but in what God sees we can be. We are a race of sinners, but God sees us as His children!

Just like we are given value that we might not realize in the parable of the merchant that we looked at in our last episode, this parable teaches us that we have worth in God’s eyes when we are moving away from evil and growing towards Him. It isn’t pleasant to look at the fate of those who have chosen evil, but it is a reminder that our lives are a chance for us to decide whether we will be redeemed by Jesus, or whether we will prefer a life of worthless sin.

We have all been given the gift of life, and the most important decision we can make in this life is deciding to place our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. The decisions made in this life have eternal results.

In the past, some preachers and Christian leaders pressured people with a fear of hell approach to accepting the gospel. However, choosing Jesus because you are scared of burning is not the best reason to choose Christ.

The best reason to choose Jesus is because of what God has done for us through Jesus, and because you want a future life without any of the sin, pain, disease, death, and suffering in this life. Jesus is the way out of this life and the spiritual gate into a perfect sinless future life. While our lives with Jesus can begin today, as Christians, we know that the lives we are currently living are nothing when compared with the life God has planned to bless us with when Jesus returns!

We become more valuable than we realize when we place our faith, our hope, our trust, and our belief in Jesus, and when we turn away from sin, we become a fish that is worth saving for eternity!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue seeking God first and placing Him first in your life. Choose to keep making the intentional choice to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Him each and every day, and also intentionally choose to grow towards God and away from sin.

Also, keep praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn firsthand what God wants to teach you through His Word. While learning from others is good, always take what others teach and compare it with what the Bible teaches, because the Bible has stood the test of time and it is the most reliable guide we have to help us live for God in a sinful world.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Year of Parables – Episode 19: In a parable about fishing, Jesus shares what the judgment will be like, and in this parable we can learn what makes us worthless in the eyes of God.

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Finding Jesus before Dying: John 8:21-30

Published May 6, 2026 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 8:21-30 (NIrV)

²¹Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away. You will look for me, and you will die in your sin. You can’t come where I am going.”

²²This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘You can’t come where I am going’?”

²³But Jesus said, “You are from below. I am from heaven. You are from this world. I am not from this world. ²⁴I told you that you would die in your sins. This will happen if you don’t believe that I am he. If you don’t believe, you will certainly die in your sins.”

²⁵“Who are you?” they asked.

“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. ²⁶“I have a lot to say that will judge you. But the one who sent me can be trusted. And I tell the world what I have heard from him.”

²⁷They did not understand that Jesus was telling them about his Father. ²⁸So Jesus said, “You will lift up the Son of Man. Then you will know that I am he. You will also know that I do nothing on my own. I speak just what the Father has taught me. ²⁹The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.” ³⁰Even while Jesus was speaking, many people believed in him.

Read John 8:21-30 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

During one of Jesus’ conversations with the crowds that followed Him, John tells us that Jesus said some perplexing things. In this conversation, I believe Jesus hints at something important, and something that is very challenging.

Jesus opens up this passage restating an idea He has previously shares. John tells us that “Once more Jesus said to them, ‘I am going away. You will look for me, and you will die in your sin. You can’t come where I am going.’” (v. 21)

The phrase that really stands out in my mind in this larger statement is when Jesus tells them, “You will look for me, and you will die in your sin.” (v. 21)

On the surface, this sounds backward. After all, shouldn’t we be looking for Jesus?

Perhaps Jesus knew He might be misunderstood, so a few verses later, He restates this idea using a slight shift in wording. John records Jesus’ restating this as “I told you that you would die in your sins. This will happen if you don’t believe that I am he. If you don’t believe, you will certainly die in your sins.” (v. 24)

When comparing these two statements, we begin to see that seeking Jesus does not always mean we will end up placing our faith in Him. Not everyone who seeks Jesus will believe He is the Messiah. There will be those who seek and find Jesus, but who ultimately choose to reject Him. These people will die in their sins.

However, there will be those who put their faith in Jesus and believe He is the one who God sent for us. Those of us who believe in Jesus and believe Him to be our Messiah do not die in our sins. Instead, we have Jesus’ promise of heaven and eternal life.

I believe that Jesus should be where our belief is focused, and that belief in Jesus is the only way to have eternal life. But I also believe that not everyone will be saved, and that not everyone will choose Jesus when they have found Him. Looking for Jesus is important, but believing in Him is the only way to find salvation for eternity!

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Saving His People: Matthew 1:18-25

Published May 5, 2026 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Matthew 1:18-25 (NASB)

While reading about the birth of Jesus, a phrase stood out to me that I never noticed before. I don’t know how many times I have read this, but I guess God keeps showing me new things when I open up the Bible to read with His guidance.

In the second half of verse 21, we read the angel telling Joseph, “For He [Jesus] will save His people from their sins.”

This is the big overall mission of Jesus’ life as told to Jesus’ earthly father, but something interesting that I never saw until now is the phrase “His people” in this statement: “for He will save His people from their sins.”

The angel could have said Jesus would save all of humanity from their sins, but he doesn’t. The angel could have said Jesus would save all of “God’s people” from their sins, but he doesn’t. Instead, the angel tells Joseph that Jesus will save all of Jesus’ people from their sins.

So who exactly are “Jesus’ people”?

When reading this, and seeing what could have been vs. what is, I am lead to believe that saying “Jesus’ people” means all of those people who have put their faith and hope in Jesus, as their “sacrificial lamb” to pay the price for their sins. Those living before the cross had the symbol of the crucifixion and of Jesus through the sacrifice/death of a lamb, and all of us living after the cross have the crucifixion event as an even clearer picture of this truth.

By accepting the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice, we align ourselves with Him and become one of His people. This can be summed up with the phrase “trust and obey”: We trust in His sacrifice, and we show that we love and accept Him by obeying what He has told us to do.

In the angel’s message, we see Jesus creating a new group of people: His people – and this group of people would overlap but also be distinct from all groups of people before it.

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