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Sunday of Lent 2

“Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly” — Matthew 15:21–28.


Faith receives what is promised from God. Faith prays based on those same promises of God. The Canaanite woman’s persistent pleas to Jesus to heal her daughter were based on what God had promised to do for all people. Though she was in no way worthy of such a gift of healing, not even being part of house of Israel, nonetheless she trusted God’s promises in Christ Jesus. Jesus commends her faith. Her faith is great not because of some quality or quantity, but because of its object: Christ and what He came to bring.

Likewise, we pray, “Thy Kingdom come” trusting the promises that God has given us concerning His kingdom, namely, His righteous reign over our hearts and lives by faith. We in no way deserve or have merited that kingdom, not even by our prayers. But it comes all the same by His grace as a gift, “when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”

Therefore, we can pray with the faith of the Canaanite woman having the same object of our faith, the same Christ who came for her and comes for us. We look not to our strength to usher in the kingdom of God. By His grace we trust in the promises of His holy Word and by that same grace we live godly lives of faith both now and forevermore.


O God, You see that of ourselves we have no strength. By Your mighty power defend us from all adversity that may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.



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