Imperial Valley Christian Center

Most Christians kind of have the idea that God is the primary obstacle to answered prayer. We think that if we could just figure out how to convince God to let loose of the answer we would receive the help we need. So we cry, or threaten or promise or attempt to bargain in the hope that we will somehow hit on the right strategy for getting God to move on our behalf.

But the Bible teaches something completely different about prayer. The Bible teaches that God wants to answer our prayers. It is His desire to give us what we ask for in prayer. Here's one of my favorite scriptures:

Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Ask and it shall be given you. Shall be given you… Shall be given… Shall be given you. This is Jesus talking and he doesn't say, "might be given you" or "it's probable that it will be given you," or even "if you've pleased God it will be given you" or "if God's in a good mood it will be given you."  He says ask and it shall be given  you. He doesn't leave himself an out. If I was his lawyer I would have advised him to add some small print here, maybe a footnote or a loophole of some kind, but he doesn't do that. In fact if he were to do that it would be impossible for us to get our prayers answered. He has to provide certainty. He can't equivocate. Any ambiguity on his part will be grounds for doubting on our part. And when we doubt we can be certain of not receiving from God.

So Jesus is making clear to us that, for His part, God will give us what we ask for, when we ask. He repeats it again for emphasis in the next verse:

(This is an edited version of an earlier post.)

Maybe it's just me, (Hey I’m a Mexican American conservative, who lives about 15 miles from the Mexican Border, I used to practice a little immigration law, what do I know.) but every time John Derbyshire, over at The Corner, let's loose a rant against illegal immigrants, the image that pops into my head is of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting the leader of the nativist gang in the movie Gangs of New York. I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the Derb as he suffers from a most common affliction; hating that most which you used to be. You see Derb used to be an illegal alien and just like no one hates smoking as much as ex-smokers apparently no one hates illegal immigration as much as former illegal immigrants.

I should know, my dad and the Derb are cut from the same cloth, he also being a former illegal immigrant, and vigorous objectioner to current illegals. My dad was here illegally in the '50s, back in

Haven't posted any video in a while because we've been busy with the move to our new location and with starting up the new Spanish language church hopefully I can post a little more regularly now.

We've been talking for quite some time about the purpose of Christianity. Here's the progression of the argument so far: We have tried to demonstrate the purpose of Christianity by: Looking at the condition of man before Jesus came, i.e. man was under the rule of Satan; By looking at at the message which Jesus preached, i.e. the Kingdom of God. In this message we look at the purpose of Christianity, from the point of view of what Jesus did by dieing on the cross, rising from the dead and ascending to the right hand of the father, Jesus came to become King.

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