May 6
“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)
Jesus emphasized the need to ASK, to SEEK, to KNOCK. As I have been saying the last few days, I don’t think we do this very much or very well as Christians, at least not in relation to truly important and eternal objectives and goals worthy of our holy and righteous God. I can’t stress enough how important it is to get into the habit of daily ASKING, abiding, praying without ceasing, not taking an apparent “no” for an answer.
The answer probably won’t come right away. KEEP ASKING. Things may get worse before they get better. KEEP SEEKING. Things may seem hopeless, game over, done and gone. KEEP KNOCKING. With God, all things are possible, and we glorify Him when we believe that and act accordingly. We don’t glorify Him when we give up easily on a worthy goal or a spiritual aim that would bring Him honor and praise and would be a testimony to others. We HAVE to keep trying, we HAVE to keep at it, we HAVE to keep asking and seeking and knocking as long as we have life in us. This reflects true faith, and it is a positive reflection on our glorious God who moves mountains on behalf of those who seek Him with a pure heart and persevering faith.
ASK
SEEK
KNOCK
Are these habits in your life? Why not? What do you have to do to make them characteristic of you?
As a final comment, you may find wonderful answers to prayer when you pray with diligence and fervency, as suggested above. You may subsequently find a few days, weeks, or months later that you are struggling again, perhaps with the same things as before. This has occurred with me a number of times, and it is a reflection of the fact that rarely are these burdens lifted for good. The same problems, circumstances, sin habits, and thinking patterns that created the problems in the first place continue to push us into the same problems that we are trying to get out of.
I think prayer is sort of like a hot air balloon. It has to continue to have hot air blown into it, because the air inside the balloon is constantly being cooled by the surrounding atmosphere. That is why we need to be learning to pray without ceasing. Satan is always active and always trying to undo the progress we are making through prayer. We need to be diligent to keep praying and keep asking God to do the things we cannot and enable us to overcome.
Reinforce the defenses and defeat temptation with unceasing prayer.