"Accurate Understanding through Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit"

The Puritan writer Thomas Watson said, "Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow. Faith feathers the arrow of prayer, and makes it fly accurately, and pierce the throne of grace." For the believer, prayer is the aiming device for our journey. God speaks to us—in warning or revelation--while listening to Him during our prayer time.

Jesus, as the Son of Man, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness and there spent forty days and forty nights in prayer and fasting. Why forty days and nights? Why not only five, ten or twenty days? (Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13) No one had ever seen God face to face (John 1: 18), not even Moses the recipient of the Law, it was only Jesus, full of grace and truth, Who saw Almighty God in the wilderness. Because of this, He was able to accurately chose the twelve disciples (even the one who betrayed Him, Psalm 41:9), accurately quote the Scriptures to those who questioned Him, and fulfill His mission of our salvation via the cross.

In Luke 20:27-38, our Gospel reading today, Jesus was questioned by the Sadducees about the marriage of a woman to a man, and eventually, to each of his six younger brothers in turn. In the resurrection, whose wife would she be? Jesus accurately answered the Sadducees that there is no marriage after the resurrection from the dead. He explained to the Sadducees that there is no possession of material things in heaven, but we will be like angels; and we will join with our God as sons of the resurrection.

We may encounter questions similar to that of the Sadducees; therefore, our main concern is to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and be consistent in our prayer life where God reveals accurate answers to us. Let us stay focused on His promises, being accurate in our understanding of His Word.