Ask and You Will Receive

Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV) “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
James 4:2-3 (NIV) “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
1 John 3:21-22 (NIV) “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.”

God’s word just blows me away time and time again! When I think about these verses I get the distinct impression that He is waiting, like on the edge of heaven, ready to shower down on us what we ask for! That’s amazing, and it goes against the notion that God is a stingy, meanie waiting to squash us when we blow it. The kind of God I read about is so much for us that He is ready to turn heaven over and shake it out when we get to the place where we’re not just asking selfishly. When we are following Jesus and keeping to his commands then we can have an overwhelming sense of confidence that God will give us what we request of him. Let me re-emphasize that our motives must be right, but when they are and when we are following his lead, then we get to experience the limitless resources of the Almighty God.

The scripture clearly teaches us that if we don’t ask, we won’t receive. This is because God has delegated his work on earth to mankind. The Bible says, “The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind.” (Psalm 115:16) The way it is supposed to work is that we seek the Lord, we ask him to act in alignment with his will, and he responds to us based on our request for his intervention in our lives. Yes, the Lord knows everything that we need before we ask him, but we must make our requests known to him. As you hear yourself asking of God, listen to your words and ask yourself if that is really what you want. The kind of relationship we have with our God is revealed by our requests.