Friday, April 30, 2010

Ask for Anything

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you; For everyone that asks receives, and he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks, it shall be opened” (Mathew 7:7-8).

Promises like these stir up an immediate reaction. Some respond in confusion, “Why then have I not received what I asked for?” Other respond, “Great I will ask God for ____(fill in the blank). Some have built entire doctrines on believing you have what you ask for and it is guaranteed to come. And if you don’t receive what you asked for, you have sinned or you don’t truly believe.

But a principle to understanding scripture is to always use scripture to explain scripture. In other words, we must study all of scripture to understand any portion. The author of 1 John tells us we must pray according to God’s will (1 John 5:14-15). James says we do not receive what we pray for because we are asking for something for ourselves and not for that which brings glory to God (James 4:5).

What then is the value of Jesus’ promise that we can ask for anything and he will give it to us? If our hearts are seeking God’s glory that he may be made known, that the glory of his grace might live in those we know, the promise has great value. We can pray for people to know Christ (2 Peter 3:9), we can pray for God to be glorified in our lives (John 11:4, 14:13), we can pray for infilling of the Holy Spirit (John 14:17), we can pray that our lives be filled with the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and we know we will have all that we ask.

It is an amazing and one of the most valuable promises God has given us.