Keep on Asking
There is something about being a child that intrigues me: the simplicity of childlike faith that doesn’t take time to reason or to filter what is said—and has the confidence to ask and the simplicity to believe that they will receive. Childlike faith asks from a place of vulnerability with the expectation of an answer.
I can remember living on a farm as a child, and my brother and I coming up with an idea to ask our parents for a horse. It had always been our dream, so we came up with a plan: We would ask, and if the answer was no, we would pray and ask. We even came up with a chant which, looking back, was quite annoying: “We want a horse; we want a horse!” After many weeks of asking and using the power of persuasion, Dad and Mum eventually gave in, and we became the owners of a beautiful horse.
In Matthew 7:7-8 AMP there is a familiar passage of Scripture: “Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives, and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps on knocking, it will be opened.”
There is something about asking that opens doors of opportunity—doors that probably won’t open without an initial, persistent ask. When we choose to ask, it creates a God-given moment and space for Him to demonstrate His goodness and kindness toward us.
In these verses notice how many times the phrase “keep on” is mentioned after the ask, seek, and knock. To “keep on” speaks of persevering and continuing. Whenever we ask and keep on asking, God’s Word says “it will be given to you.” And that “when you seek and keep on seeking you will find, when you knock and keep on knocking the door will be opened to you.” There isn’t any suggestion of perhaps or possibly or it might happen. There is absolute certainty that God will respond with, “It will be given, it will be opened to you.”
A – ASK
S – SEEK
K – KNOCK
Verse 11 reads: “If you then, evil (sinful by nature) as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven [perfect as He is] give what is good and advantageous to those who keep on asking Him.”
God already knows the secret desires of our heart, and yet He wants us to communicate and ask Him. Our heavenly Father longs, and desires, to give good gifts and things; however, there are times that we are reluctant to ask because we are uncertain of the outcome, or we don’t realize that the thing we want is freely available.
I wonder how many gifts and answers to prayers are stored up in heaven simply waiting for us to ask?
John 15:7 reads: “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you [that is, if we are vitally united and My message lives in your heart], ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”
When we have a living, vibrant relationship with Jesus and allow His Word to abide and remain within us, there is a flow that proceeds from His heart toward us. Every day is a new adventure filled with opportunities and possibilities.
Children have no problem in asking; it’s in their nature. However, as adults, we somehow lose the desire to ask. We need to learn to pray big, audacious prayers, believing that our Heavenly Father can and will answer with no strings attached.
James 1:17 reads: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], in whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].
God is a good God, and an incredible Father—and everything good within our lives comes from Him. He is the source, and we cannot take any credit. His goodness and free-flowing, extravagant grace are freely available every day.
Can I encourage you to be childlike and to continue asking your heavenly Father, believing that you will receive? You won’t be disappointed!
Streams in the Desert – July 25
- 202225 Jul
What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter (John 13:7).
We have only a partial view here of God’s dealings, His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity!
Go, in the reign of Israel’s greatest king, to the heights of Lebanon. See that noble cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with northern blasts! Summer loves to smile upon it, night spangles its feathery foliage with dewdrops, the birds nestle on its branches, the weary pilgrim or wandering shepherd reposes under its shadows from the midday heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall; The aged denizen of the forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman’s stroke!
As we see the axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk, then the noble limbs stripped of their branches, and at last the “Tree of God,” as was its distinctive epithet, coming with a crash to the ground, we exclaim against the wanton destruction, the demolition of this proud pillar in the temple of nature. We are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem–invoking inanimate things to resent the affront–“Howl, fir tree; for the cedar has fallen!”
But wait a little. Follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side; thence conveyed in rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean; and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God. As you see its destination, placed in the very Holy of Holies, in the diadem of the Great King–say, can you grudge that “the crown of Lebanon” was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting? That cedar stood as a stately prop in Nature’s sanctuary, but “the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former!”
How many of our souls are like these cedars of old! God’s axes of trial have stripped and bared them. We see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious, but He has a noble end and object in view; to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His Heavenly Zion; to make them a “crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.”
–Macduff
I do not ask my cross to understand,
My way to see–
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee.
Clearing Up Conversation Confusion
Our feelings can mislead us; confidence comes when we choose to trust what the Word of God says.
We have an Enemy who wants to undermine our confidence in salvation. We’ve all been there—joyfully moving along through life, sure of our standing as God’s children, when all of the sudden we sin and our feelings take over. Satan can use our remorse and conflicting emotions to eat away at our assurance. We think, There’s no way I can be saved. If I were truly saved, I would never have done such a thing. Overwhelmed by feelings of regret and shame, we find our faith coming under fire.
It is amazing how effectively our fleeting human emotions can undermine our certainty about God’s promises. We should remember that feelings can be unreliable; the Lord, however, says only what is true and never seeks to confuse us. Anytime your emotions contradict the Word of God, you can be sure the Scriptures are reliable. For a believer, “feeling saved” is like a husband or wife “feeling married.” You either are or you’re not; your feelings do not make it so.
Has a sense of regret stolen your confidence in God’s eternal salvation? Lay your feelings before the Lord today, and embrace the certainty that comes only with His truth. Our loving Father longs for you to trust Him without wavering.
Salvation altogether by grace
By: Charles Spurgeon
‘Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.’ 2 Timothy 1:9
Suggested Further Reading: Ephesians 2:11–22
To say that we save ourselves is to utter a manifest absurdity. We are called in Scripture ‘a temple’—a holy temple in the Lord. But shall any one assert that the stones of the edifice were their own architect? Shall it be said that the stones of the building in which we are now assembled cut themselves into their present shape, and then spontaneously came together, and piled this spacious edifice? Should anyone assert such a foolish thing, we should be disposed to doubt his sanity; much more may we suspect the spiritual sanity of any man who should venture to affirm that the great temple of the church of God designed and erected itself. No: we believe that God the Father was the architect, sketched the plan, supplies the materials, and will complete the work. Shall it be also said that those who are redeemed have redeemed themselves? That slaves of Satan break their own fetters? Then why was a Redeemer needed at all? How should there be any need for Jesus to descend into the world to redeem those who could redeem themselves? Do you believe that the sheep of God, whom he has taken from between the jaws of the lion, could have rescued themselves? It were a strange thing if such were the case. We cannot believe that Christ came to do what the sinners might have done themselves. No. ‘I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me;’ and the redemption of his people shall give glory unto himself only. Shall it be asserted that those who were once dead have spiritually quickened themselves? Can the dead make themselves alive?
For meditation: The Greek usually translated ‘save yourselves’ in Acts 2:40 should be translated ‘be saved’ as found in other places in the New Testament (cf. Acts 2:21,47; 4:12; 16:30–31; Ephesians 2:8). Have you been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18–19) and built into God’s church (Ephesians 2:22; 1 Peter 2:5)?