Ask & Receive

FOR EVERYONE WHO ASKS WILL RECEIVE, AND ANYONE WHO SEEKS WILL FIND, AND THE DOOR WILL BE OPENED TO THOSE WHO KNOCK. Matthew 7.8.

I am against those who tout ‘riches for faith’ or ‘healing for believing in God’! Don’t these add fuel to the non-Christian critique against coercive conversions? However, one of the fundamental reasons why man believes in God is because he is helpless and he needs help!’ He needs help spiritually most of all and emotionally, physically and materially. God is more interested in the soul than body, and righteousness than unrighteous mammon.

The truth is that you and I are helpless creatures, though we may be reluctant to admit it. You might boast in your self-sufficiency in health, wealth, intellect, power and achievements. You may not believe in God or ignore Him in your everyday life. But it is all for a time only! The other day, I went to one of our local hospitals to visit a dear old friend and a fellow Christian. Two nights later, suddenly, he had a mild attack of chest pain and sweating. The heart specialist who looked after him told me that he had a serious ‘heart attack’. I spent some time with him and prayed for him with anointing of oil as I always do in obedience to the Word of God (Ja5.14,15).

My friend is eighty plus and until lately he had never visited a doctor or been admitted to a hospital, even though all his working life he carried a health insurance cover. But things suddenly changed as it usually does. Are you prepared for it? You need God desperately, like everyone else who gets into trouble beyond their power to get out!

How wonderful it is that our God is more than willing to help. In today’s passage, we have one of the greatest promises of the Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples to answer their prayers. It is not a reluctant God we find here who is unwilling and stingy with His answers. Jesus repeatedly said in different ways, how willing and ready God is to hear the prayers of His children. Listen, to His Words that it may build your faith. “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to those who knock”. He compared prayer to “asking, seeking and knocking”. It shows the increasing degree of desperateness of the plaintiff and the intensity of the need.

Our compassionate and loving Lord Jesus, knowing the doubts and weakness of their faith in prayer, gave the disciples a very convincing argument by relating a common experience with which all were familiar. He asked, “Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone when he asks for bread? Or would you give him a snake when he asks for a fish? As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (vs 9, 10,11).

Dear believer, if you cannot trust God and believe His simple promise, “Ask, and you will receive”, your faith is not of much use to you or others!’ Simply trust God and keep on asking until you receive. Receive you will, in God’s time and in His way. God is faithful, He cannot lie (Heb 10.23; Tit 1.2).

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, help me to believe in Your plain and simple promise and keep on praying and not give up. Amen.