What You Ask

"Jesus answered, 'You do not know what you are asking. 

Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?'" 

- Matthew 20:22 -

"We ask that our souls may be saved and go to heaven, when we die. It is a good request indeed. But are we prepared to take up the cross, and follow Christ? Are we willing to give up the world for His sake? Are we ready to put off the old man, and put on the new - to fight, to labor, and to run so as to obtain? Are we ready to withstand a taunting world, and endure hardships for Christ's sake? What shall we say? If we are not so ready, our Lord might say to us also, 'Ye know not what ye ask.'

"We ask that God would make us holy. It is a good request indeed. But are we prepared to be sanctified by any process that God in His wisdom may call on us to pass through? Are we ready to be purified by affliction, weaned from the world be bereavements, drawn nearer to God by losses, sicknesses, and sorrow? Alas! these are hard questions. But if we are not, our Lord might well say to us, 'Ye know not what ye ask.'

- J. C. Ryle
from Matthew - Thy Kingdom Come, edited by Kevin Swanson