Skip to main content

Ask and it will Be Given to You

Image
By
Over the last several weeks we’ve been meditating on the question, why must we ask of Jesus in prayer? I have suggested eight answers to this question which you can find on my blog at bornoftheword.blogspot.com. For now, I’d like to turn our attention to the promises Jesus makes to those who will in fact ask of him by faith. We begin this six-week journey with the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-11. 

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” 

The promise Jesus makes in these verses is extreme. The one through whom all things were created, the one who sustains all things by the word of his power, has said that if we ask of him, seek him, and knock on his door, if you will, he will respond to us, he will be found by us, and he will answer us. 

To help us process his hard-to-believe statement, Jesus uses the metaphor of a parent and child. He’s right in what he’s saying—what parent worth their weight in feathers would give a stone for bread or a serpent for fish? Only the most hard-hearted or mentally unstable among us would even think of doing such a thing, and therefore, how much more is God our Father disposed to give good things to those who ask of him, who seek him, who knock upon his door? 

The logic is as hard to escape as the promise is to believe but as we meditate upon it we see that it implies something that precedes answered prayer. The proper context of Jesus’ stunning promise is a Father-child relationship in which there is genuine love and warmth, regular contact and communication, clear leadership from the Father and humble submission from the child. The context is one in which the child who asks, seeks, and knocks wants the Father himself more than anything so that his help and blessings are but icing on the cake of knowing him. 

Understanding the relational nature of prayer and its answers is of utmost importance but as we grow in this understanding we must also grow in the refusal to minimize the extent of Jesus’ promises. Jesus meant exactly what he said and we would do well to receive and live by his words. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” 

Prayer Focus: Pray that Jesus will help us understand the relational nature of prayer and the extent and power of his promises. Pray that he will teach us ask, seek, and knock at all times and in all things. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Graham, Holiness, and Leadership

By
A few years ago, I was listening to a radio program on which Marshall Shelley was being interviewed about his new book, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (Zondervan, 2005). They were giving away a few copies of the book to those who called in, and something inside me felt compelled to call. But I didn’t have a good question to ask, so I prayed to the Lord and said, “If you want me to have a copy of this book, please give me a good question to ask and I’ll call.” I’m not sure if the Lord gave me this question or if it just popped into my head, but one way or the other, I thought to ask about the connection in Billy’s life between his private pursuit of holiness and integrity, and his public effectiveness and longevity. So, I made the call and was given the last copy of the book they had to give. A couple of years earlier, I had breakfast with some friends and the subject of Billy Graham’s life and ministry came up. We talked mostly about his commitment to integrity in the area...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catechisms: Building a Heritage of Sound Faith - By Pastor Kevin Feder

By
This is an article I (Pastor Kevin) wrote in 2005 and updated in 2017. It is featured in a new resource available through Children’s Desiring God called Discipleship through Doctrinal Teaching and Catechism by Sally Michael.  It is our desire to encourage parents to use a children’s catechism as a tool in building and strengthening faith in children. A simple definition of a catechism is “organized teaching.” Catechisms are not the only things that can or should be used to instruct the next generation, yet they have useful purposes. Listed here are ten specific benefits a catechism can uniquely offer. Hopefully these ten points will help parents understand how a catechism can be effectively used in their families. 1.  A catechism is a very clear and complete gospel message. A catechism is, among other things, a very clear and concise gospel message to children. Everything a child needs to know for salvation is embodied within a catechism. The gospel is truly ama...
Post a Comment
Read more