Ask, Seek, Knock Keep Going

“Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7: 7-8 HCSB

Let me say before we even start that I am not a name it and claim it preacher. I don’t think that we serve a genie in a bottle kind of God. I do however believe that we have not because we ask not. I have found this to be very true in my own life. When I have an impossible situation in my life, the chances of me praying for it are slim. I ask myself all the time, why would God want to do that for me? You see the answer to our prayers should not be the reason that we don’t pray them. The answer is not our concern. God tells us that it is our responsibility to pray and leave the answers up to Him. We should seek to glorify God with our prayers. That means that we need to have the faith to really step out and ask. When we pray we relieve ourselves of the responsibility. We have taken the ball out of our court and given it over to God. This is when we need to learn to leave the ball alone. If your anything like me, you will ask God to show up in something and then you will try and solve the problem on your own. We are to take our hands off and put all the concern into God’s hands, and you can believe that He is more than capable of handling it. The Apostle Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. When we are walking by faith we hand everything over to God and don’t have to worry about those things as we are in constant communication with our Father. It is always amazing to me how we have enough faith in God to save us and forgive our sins, but never enough faith to trust God with our prayers. Persistence seems to be the key to success. Keep asking, keep searching and keep knocking all imply to continue to do the action. We sometimes give up right before God wants to bless us. Be faithful to ask and then be faithful to wait on God. If it is what we are suppose to have or need don’t we trust God enough to provide it for us. Let me leave you with this statement from my devotional this morning, the beauty of obedience is this: it relieves us of responsibility. It takes all the pressure off of us and places it squarely on God’s sovereign shoulders. The greatest tragedy in life is the prayers that go unanswered simply because we would not ask.