"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! - Matthew 7: 7-11 (ESV)
Here we come to one of the often misquoted and misused verses in the Gospels. How many times do we see Christians employ the logic that all they need to do is ask and God will give them the desires of their hearts? How often do we hear hucksters and false teachers use this a promise of God without bothering to exposit what God is actually saying to us here? Now, it is true that God is a gracious Father who wants to give us good things but those things are according to His will and His plan, not ours. He will always meet our needs but we may disagree about what those needs are. Faith is believing that He knows best. When you boil it down to the most basic elements, this is why the world rejects God. They do not want Him controlling what they get in this life. They want to decide what is best for them. They want to be their own god and be the Most High.
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' - Isaiah 14: 12-14 (ESV)
This is the Prophet's Isaiah's account of the fall of Lucifer and how God cast him out from heaven. What was his offense? He said in his heart that He will make himself to be like the Most High. It is the same thing we all wanted to be before we recognized our desperate need for a Savior. It is what the world still desires to be in their hearts. It is the core of humanism. The key verses are the complete opposite of this mindset. They reinforce the total dependency we ought to have on God.
First we ought to ask and we will discover that we will receive if we ask. This speaks specifically to prayer. We ask verbally. We tell God the desires of our hearts. We share with God our deepest fears. We cultivate the Father-child relationship we were meant to have with Him. The abuse of this notion comes from the misunderstanding that the answer is always yes. It is not. The answer is sometimes no. Those of us who are parents know that the child is often asking for something we must say no to. Why? Because we know better! Why then as believers do we expect our heavenly Father to be an absentee parent? Why would we expect Him to provide a rubber stamp for all of our requests? After David sinned with Bathsheba he prayed that God would spare the child but the answer was no. I am sure for over ten years Joseph prayed to get out of prison since he was innocent but the answer from God was no. King David wanted to build the temple but the answer was no. Moses wanted to see the Promised Land but the answer was no.
Here is today's deep theology - the answer of no is just as much a blessing as the answer of yes. Why? Because He is God! Look at the explanation He gives in the key verses! Is God going to give us a serpent or a rock? Of course not! He gives only good things to His children even if His children do not realize their true worth or value at the time. But we do not see it this way all the time. We have designs in our wicked hearts and we expect God to bless them. Instead of asking God for guidance we come to Him for approval. That is not asking, that is assumption. He is the author of our story but we do like to grasp at the pen sometimes. We think we know a better angle or a superior plot twist but somehow we have to remind ourselves that He is God. He must know better than me.
Secondly, we ought to seek and we will discover that we will find. God is not difficult to find beloved. This is how people get saved in apostate churches. If you are truly seeking, God is everywhere. This speaks to our heart. Asking dealt with what we verbalize but now we get down to the matters of the heart. What are we pursuing with our lives? Far too many come to a decision for Christ and never get off of spiritual milk. They are never seeking Him in order to grow. They are never then ready for the meat God has to offer us if we truly seek Him.
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. - Hebrews 5: 11-14 (ESV)
How do we seek God? Not only through prayer but by reading His Word. That is how we spend time with Him. It amazes me how Christians can say they love God but think spending an hour and a half on Sundays is sufficient. What relationship would last like that in real life? We see herein these verses from Hebrews that God intends for us to be mature in Christ. That the solid food of the Word of God will properly prepare us to discern good from evil. This is speaking directly to apostasy and heresy. We ought to be able to spot the false teachings that have infiltrated the church today but because so many are still feeding on spiritual milk, they cannot discern when they are being falsely taught. This is how a Joel Osteen thrives. He constantly feeds his listeners with this milky mess of poor theology and self help gimmicks and they love it because they do not know any better. The truth is if you cannot discern the absurdity of Joel Osteen then you will never be able to discern the more intricate heresy of someone like Joseph Prince. We must seek Him to know Him. We must know Him to grow in Him.
Lastly, we ought to knock and we will discover that it will be opened unto us. What will? Even deeper levels still for us to grow in Christ. Knocking now infers action on our part. Not just praying and not just reading His Word but now taking these principles and applying them to our lives. Knowledge without application is dead. David said he hid the Word in his heart that he might not sin against God. Think of Joseph turning down the sexual advances of Mrs. Potiphar:
But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. - Genesis 39: 8-10 (ESV)
Beloved, Joseph is but a 17 year old boy but he responds with wisdom beyond his years. While it is one thing to understand what would be wickedness to God it is another to put that into action and apply it in our lives. David was unable to do it when he saw Bathsheba bathing. Peter was unable to avoid the denials of Christ even though he was told he would do it! Knocking deals with desiring more and more of God. There are deeper truths and a deeper closeness to the Lord available to us. It can be opened but it requires that we take what we learn in prayer and the Word and put them into action in our lives. God has good things He wants to give us. Let us ask Him with our words, seek Him with our hearts and knock on His door knowing He will give us only good things.
Rev. Anthony.
