The gospel is a pre-ascension passage whose point today is to encourage belief in Jesus as the Christ, belief that Jesus and the Father are truly one, and belief that it is God's primary desire for us, his children to be filled with joy: to be happy – as much as possible in this life, but completely happy and filled with joy in the next life.
For those who believe such things: prayer will be effective: ask the Father in my name, and it will be given to you; it will be given because you know what you ought to pray for: that which has to do with the life that I taught you about and demonstrated: if you need help living that out, and you pray, you will get what you pray for; anything else is "groundless prayer" and you can expect not to get what you ask for.
The first reading today talks about one of this first Jews who came to believe what we mentioned above – especially that Jesus was the Christ; the one who fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures; the Messiah who lived, taught, showed signs that he was from God, suffered, died at the hands of the Jews, but then rose again from the dead: indeed, he is now the CHRIST! This was Apollos! He spoke boldly proclaiming the Way of God not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles. He worked independently but certainly with the full concurrence of Paul and Barnabas.
We ask the Father then, in the name of Jesus his Son, our Lord and Brother and Friend – to give us what we need today to boldly proclaim to the world – to the people we see in it and run across today – someway, somehow that JESUS IS THE CHRIST; human and salvation history is now radically different, and that it will all work out according to his rules rather than our own. For it is God who is king of all the earth and will be so forever!
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