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. Matthew 7:7-8
"The instruction in this text should not be lifted from its context...in the Sermon and abused...God [is not] a celestial slot machine. Pull the handle enough times in prayer, be persistent, and you will get what you want! Such thinking is entirely wrong! A text without a context is a pretext. Isolating this text from its setting in the Sermon on the Mount is deadly. The broad context of the Sermon sets down the surpassing righteousness, humility, sincerity, purity, and love expected of those who are members of the kingdom of God. These virtues are beyond human attainment apart from God's grace. The broad context underscores our need. In the immediately preceding context (vv. 1-6) Jesus has shown us the danger of condemning other people as if we were judges. He also has told us to get the plank out of our own eye before we attempt to remove a speck from someone else's. His warning is, 'For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you' (v. 2). This standard is terrifying. Who is adequate for such things? How can we live up to such a high standard? We need to be cleansed. We need help and grace, but from where? Jesus answers, 'Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you' (v. 7). This famous text is not carte blanche for our material desires. Rather, it tells us how to pray for the character of the kingdom in our lives. -Kent Hughes
There are at least three things that hinder us from going deeper in prayer. The first is the sneaking suspicion that prayer doesn’t matter. It’s easy to fall into a kind of fatalism that says 'God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do.' So we stop praying because we think nothing will change. Then there is the fear that we won’t pray in the 'right' way, that we won’t use the correct words or we won’t use the right formula and that God therefore won’t even bother to hear what we say. Finally most of us struggle with the little voice inside that tells us we’ve got more important things to do. Prayer is good but we need to get on with the 'real business' of the day. So we don’t pray as we ought or as we would like. Ray Pritchard
Ask (aiteo) means to ask for with urgency, even to the point of demanding. Aiteo more frequently suggests attitude of a suppliant means to makes a humble, earnest plea or entreaty), the petitioning of one who is lesser in position than he to whom the petition is made. To ask means to to call on for an answer, which indicates that we believe there is someone (our Father) listening. It also implies that we expect Him to answer or otherwise why ask?
Seek (zeteo) means to attempt to learn something by careful investigation or searching, to desire to have or experience something or to try to obtain something from someone. Seeking is asking plus acting, implying earnest petitioning coupled with an active endeavoring to fulfill needs.
Knock (krouo) means to rap at a door for entrance and thus implies an even greater and more repetitive intensity than either asking or seeking. The English word "knock" comes from German word meaning to press!...The idea might imply praying in the face of difficulty and even resistance. If you knock like this, your desire for entrance must be very great indeed.
Note the ascending degree of intensity from asking then to seeking and finally to overtly knocking! Each of these verbs is in the present imperative, which is a command to do each of these activities continually. Jesus is calling for persistence in prayer. Prayer is as necessary to us as oxygen to our life. Prayer is the lifeline for citizens of the Kingdom of heaven who are still on earth and as such it expresses our continued dependence on Him as we beseech Him for the grace and power to live the supernatural life of surpassing righteousness that Jesus has described in this Sermon. In order to live out the righteousness we must ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking and knock and keep knocking.
Kingdom citizens persist in desiring that the character, ambitions, attitudes, and behavior that Jesus called for be shown consistently in our lives. Yet we realize how impossible this is given our weaknesses, our propensity for sin, and our lack of power to obey (we have not forgotten the first Beatitude – 'blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'). So our Lord tells us to call upon the God of the impossible! In other words, what Jesus has commanded in attitude, ambition, behavior, and deed cannot be done apart from persistent, ongoing, regular, faithful prayer.
Asking suggests dependence; seeking suggests yearning; knocking suggests persistence.
The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire, it has bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the fates of heaven, assuaged diseases, dispelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. There is (in it) an all-sufficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings! Beloved do I really believe this? Better yet do I really believe what Jesus promises to those who ask, seek and knock? My (and your) answer to this question will not be evidenced by a simple 'yes' or 'no' but by the 'calluses (or lack of) on our knees' so to speak!)"
i ask because i lack the capacity to obey you. because i feel the wayward and chaotic strains of my wandering heart that is prone to leave the god i love. i ask because you are my heavenly father and you look at me and see your treasured, precious daughter. i seek because i can't see in the dark, because i am desperate and recognition of my need has driven me from a posture of asking to movement - left, right, up, down: the answer must exist therefore i am seeking. i am knocking because i have found the source but it is hidden from me behind the kindness of your wooden doors which say "wait." but it's there, behind closed doors, and i will knock in a manner of expectancy and eagerness and hope characteristic of a daughter who knows she is loved by her father. i will knock because you promised to open the doors and because i am loved by my king who delights in me, who delights in fulfilling his promises to me, who delights in giving gifts to me as he molds me into christ's likeness. give me battered and callused and bruised knees.
sidenotes;
into the fray
