Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking

 

So I say to you, 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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Luke 11:9-10

Ever get the impression God wants you to ask?

Ask, seek, knock - take the first letter of each of Jesus' imperatives, and what do your have? A-s-k. Then why don't we do it more?

Once upon a time there was a man who had an out of town friend show up at midnight. After all the boisterous welcoming and hugging were through, the host suddenly realized he had nothing to feed his famished friend (grocery shopping wasn't till Friday). Thank God for the neighbours. but as rang and rang the doorbell next door, he couldn't seem to rouse the family. Finally an upstairs window scraped open. After his neighbour's necessary apologies and explanation, the man upstairs grumbled that it was too late to look for food in his pantry, the were asleep, all the fuss might wake them up. But the need host refused to budge."I've got to have some bread for my visitor, please!" How long that kept up nobody knows. What Jesus' parable makes clear is that the man upstairs finally yielded to his persistent neighbour and gave him all the food he needed. The End.

The parable's punch line? Ask. Ask for what? Jesus is ready with the answer: "If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Luke 11:13 NLT). Ask for the Holy Spirit!

Asking for the Holy Spirit would be like asking your parents for a major credit card in their name with unlimited purchasing privileges. Get the card, and you've access to unimaginable blessings. (Of course, no wise, thinking parent is going to give an unlimited credit card to their children!) But ask your heavenly Father for the Holy Spirit, and it's even better than a credit card with unlimited credit. For God will bring every other gift you've ever needed (or deeply wanted) in tow. "With the reception of this Gift [the Holy Spirit], all other gifts would be ours" (My Life Today, p.57).

What kind of a parent would do that? Our heavenly Father, says Jesus. Apparently the gift of the spirit is so monumentally significant in the eyes of heaven that when we have Him we have the one Being in the universe who can access for us the treasury of God's kingdom.

from The Chosen by Dwight K. Nelson