Matthew 7:7-12 NASB
⁷Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
⁹Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?
¹¹If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! ¹²In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Devotional
The Father gives to our prayer what we need.
Anyone who reads the Sermon on the Mount attentively can be overcome by a feeling of powerlessness.
- Who can ever walk the way Jesus points out?
- Who can focus so much on the LORD and his Kingdom as we are asked to do?
- Who can treat others with such care and love as we are told?
In Matthew 7:7, the Lord Jesus says,
Ask and it will be given to you;
Seek and you shall find;
knock and it will be opened to you.
With this He catches us in our powerlessness.
There is a door where we can knock.
We can count on God’s willingness to give us everything we need to live according to His will (Philippians 4:19; 2 Corinthians 9:8).
An earthly father will never deceive his children.
He will never put anything wrong in their hands.
In this way we can be sure that our Heavenly Father will always give us what is good (Matthew 7:9-11).
In the Gospel he wrote, Luke gives the good a name, by rendering the same words: the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13).
We may receive it from the Lord.
We may allow ourselves to be equipped by the Holy Spirit for a life in which Jesus’ words become reality.
‘Pray … seek … knock …’
That is an urgent invitation.
Apparently, we don’t have to move God to answer our prayer.
It’s the other way around. He moves us to come to Him, for whoever prays receives, whoever seeks finds, and whoever knocks finds an open door.
Let us recognize that we depend on God’s Spirit and let us receive Him (John 20:22; Ephesians 5:18).
The Lord Jesus is also, for our benefit, briefly summarizing His teaching in Matthew 7:12.
It is about loving our neighbor as ourselves.
What we would like to experience ourselves, we must do to someone else.
We know the words of this verse better in its negative form: “What thou wilt not have done unto thee, neither do unto another.”
Then we can always say: ‘I’m not doing anything, am I?’
What matters is that we DON’T do something:
We should pass on the good we receive from the LORD to the people.
Question
- What can cause us to pray but not receive? (Compare Isaiah 59:1,2.)
Prayer Suggestion
- Ask God for the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
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