Asking for the Right Stuff

February 10

(Acts 3:3 NIV) "When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money."

(James 4:1-4 NIV) "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? {2} You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. {3} When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. {4} You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God."

When Peter and John approached the Temple gate, a beggar, crippled since birth, asked them for money. He was asking for the wrong thing. He asked for money, but what he really needed was healing. It’s hard to blame him -- it’s an old attitude. Most of us have been conditioned to believe that more money will fix our problems and make us happy -- so even today, many of us are still asking God for the wrong stuff. We ask Him for money, when what we really need is healing -- physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. We plead for pennies, when God has millions to give. We sit begging at the gate of glory, when we could be walking free with Jesus. We wallow in self pity, when the confidence of Christ is ours for the asking. We spend our days asking God just to get by, when what He wants to do is miraculously amaze the world through us. Are you asking God for the right stuff? -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day