“Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.” These words of Jesus sound almost limitless in their promise, as though a blank check were being placed into our hands. Does this mean that whatever enters our hearts or minds, we may ask of God—and that He must grant it to us because Christ Himself has promised it?

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” St. James’ words speak with quiet clarity about both the natural and the supernatural. The idea that the universe sprang from nothing, or that life in all its astonishing richness arose by blind chance, simply doesn’t hold up—either to reason or to genuine science. A world that truly came from nothing would not exist at all, and a universe left entirely to itself would have long since run down and vanished. Nothing exists by accident. Everything has a purpose and  a source—and that source is God.

Jesus was not a revolutionary, though He is sometimes portrayed as one. It is true that the Christian understanding of God and of the human person has profoundly shaped social order, and that modern Western democracies would be unthinkable without it. Yet at the heart of Christianity lies neither the building of a new social order nor the dismantling of the old. As Saint Peter says: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors. Honour the king.”

Christ is our Shepherd. He is the Good Shepherd who gave His life for us—so that our guilt might be erased, our sins forgiven, and that we might be redeemed and saved. We have been bought at a great price—the blood of the Son of God—by which, having been cleansed, we may walk in newness of life.

Through His self-sacrificing love, Christ has left us an example: we “should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him who judgeth righteously.”

What does “overcome the world” mean? When the New Testament speaks of the world, it refers to two things. First, it denotes God’s wondrous creation—the magnificent cosmos that includes our own beautiful planet as well as the entire universe. Second, it refers to what may be called the godless world: all those who are subject to the power of sin, evil, and death.

When Saint John says, “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world,” he is speaking of the latter—the godless world that lies under the dominion of sin, evil, and death. Thus, to “overcome the world” means to gain victory over sin, evil, and death.