Prayer Secret #5
Ask - Seek - Knock
 his next prayer
secret gets into the real heart of learning how to
properly and effectively pray to the Lord. This revelation
is coming direct from Jesus Himself.
I call this particular secret my
fighting verse whenever I have to approach God in prayer for
something specific. The reason I call this secret my fighting
verse is because in this verse are the three main conditions
that sometimes must be met before the Lord is going to want to
answer any specific prayer request you may have.
Here is the verse where this powerful and profound
revelation is being given direct to us by Jesus Himself:
"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 ... If you then, being evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who
ask Him!" (Matthew 7:7-11)
Notice two things:
1. First, there are three specific conditions
that the Lord is laying out - asking, seeking and knocking.
2. Second, all three of these conditions are
listed in one sentence. These three conditions are being
separated by semi-colons, not periods. This means that all
three of these conditions are being purposely put together in
one sentence in order to try and tell us something.
I remember when I first saw this verse, I wondered why the
original translators were using a semi-colon to separate the
three conditions instead of using a period. The reason I was
wondering this was due to the way the first part of the verse
was worded.
If you ask, and then you receive, why would you ever need to
seek or knock? Or if you seek, and then you end up finding
something, why would you ever need to go to the next condition,
which would be some kind of knocking in order to be able to get
the door to be opened up for you.
I initially thought these three conditions should be in
three separate complete sentences so as to isolate and
differentiate these three conditions from one another. But
after pondering and meditating on this with the Lord, here is
what I feel God may be trying to show us with this
revelation.
Sometimes all you have to do is ask God for something and He
will then answer the prayer. You thus will not have to go into
any kind of seeking and/or knocking modes with Him to try and
get Him to answer the prayer. Sometimes it will literally be
that simple.
However, at other times you may ask God for something, but
then you do not receive it. If God is not answering your prayer
the first time around when you are pressing in and asking Him
for something - I believe his verse is trying to tell us
something else - and that something else is to consider trying
one or two of the next two conditions - either seeking and/or
knocking.
If you do not receive any type of an answer from the Lord on
a specific prayer request you may have after asking Him several
times, try considering going into either a seeking and/or
knocking mode with Him to try and get Him to grant you the
prayer request. Sometimes the answers to your prayers will only
come if you start to do some type of seeking after it.
When I discuss each one of these conditions individually
below, I will give you some very good examples of how sometimes
you may have to add the seeking and/or knocking into your
specific prayer requests to the Lord.
Many Christians walk away too soon from their prayer
altars with the Lord. They ask the Lord once or twice for
whatever it is they are wanting from Him - and when He
doesn't answer their prayer off of their initial request,
they walk away thinking that He doesn't want to answer
their prayer - not realizing that maybe the Lord was really
wanting to answer their prayer in the first place, but that
He was wanting them to go into some kind of seeking and/or
knocking mode to get Him to release it to them.
So the next time you approach the Lord in prayer
for something very specific, make sure that you consider
all three of these conditions - asking, seeking and
knocking.
Sometimes the Lord will answer your prayer just off of the
first condition - asking, and you will not have to go into any
kind of seeking and/or knocking mode with Him to get Him to
answer the prayer. But then there will be other times that He
will want you to go into some kind of seeking and/or knocking
mode with Him before He will answer your prayer.
Now here is some commentary on each of these three specific
conditions so you can see exactly how and when to incorporate
these basic principles into your personal prayer life with the
Lord.
1. Asking
This first condition, asking, is without question, the
easiest of them all. Sometimes all you have to do is ask the
Lord once or twice for something that you are really wanting.
If the prayer request is in His perfect will for your life,
then many of the time the Lord will answer your prayer simply
off one or two prayer requests and that will be it. You will
not have to get all worked up into any kind of major prevailing
or travailing with Him. Just once or twice at the prayer altar
will do it.
However, as simple as this basic principle is for many
Christians to fully understand, there still are many Christians
who are violating this basic simple principle with the
Lord.
This revelation that we are receiving from the Lord is
another one that has two sides to it. Again, it is like looking
at a two sided coin. On the one side of the coin is
"asking." Simply ask the Lord for whatever it is you are
needing or wanting, and He will grant the prayer request as
long as the request is in His will for your life.
But the other side of the coin is that sometimes the Lord
will not bring a desire or request that you may have - all
because you have failed to ask Him for it in the first place.
Here is the verse from our Bible that gives us the flip side to
this revelation:
"Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask
and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may
spend it on your pleasures." (James 4:2)
This verse is giving us two major revelations. The first
revelation is that sometimes you do not receive something from
God simply because you did not ask Him for it. You either
simply forgot to ask Him for it, or you chose, for whatever
your personal reasons may have been at the time, not to ask Him
for it. As a result, your request and desire is never brought
your way because God was the only One that could have brought
it to you in the first place - and you chose not to get the
ball rolling with Him by asking Him to bring it to you.
The second piece of revelation that is coming off of this
verse is that maybe you have presented your prayer request
before God, but this request was not in God's perfect will for
your life. You may be wanting something for the wrong reason or
the wrong motive, like the last part of this verse is implying
when it says that the prayer request might be for your own
selfish and worldly pleasures.
This verse is telling us that when we do this, we are asking
"amiss." According to some of the different Bible
dictionaries, the word "amiss" means we are asking for
something "wrongly" or "mistakenly."
This is why all of your prayer requests have always got to
line up with the perfect will of God for your life. As I have
stated in my article "Prayer
Secret #2 - The Will of God," God always knows what is best
for you in all situations. And sometimes God will choose not to
answer a specific prayer request you may have because it may
not be in your best interests - even though you may not be able
to see it at the time that you are asking Him for it.
But now back to the first part of the revelation in the
above verse - where sometimes we do not receive something from
God because we have not asked Him for it. This now becomes the
flip side to this same coin. Again, on the one side of the coin
is receiving something from the Lord because we have officially
asked Him for it. But now the other side to that same coin is
that we may not have received something from the Lord because
we did not officially ask Him for it.
As simple as this basic principle is to fully grasp and
understand by everyone, it really is quite amazing how many
Christians are not getting many of their basic needs, wants and
desires met because they have either simply forgot to ask God
to help them receive the desire in the first place or they have
chosen not to ask God for the desire.
Here are several good examples to illustrate all of
this:
1. There are many Christians who are out
looking for their true soul mates and who have not yet married.
But instead of going direct to God the Father and asking Him to
lead them to the person of His choice, they are out trying to
find their true soul mate all on their own efforts and
wisdom.
As a result, they either end up never finding their true
soul mate in this life or they end up marrying the wrong
person. They are then forced to live the rest of their earthly
lives in a miserable and unhappy marriage - or they end up
marrying and divorcing several times throughout their lives,
never finding that one true love that God already had in store
for them had they simply asked Him for His opinion on the
matter in the first place.
I literally cannot even begin to count the number of
Christians I have personally met who have never thought to
ask God for His opinion on who they should be marrying in
this life, and then asking Him to lead them to the person
of His choice. As a result, many of these people have
either gone through multiple divorces or they have never
married as a result of never finding that one true
love.
Trying to find your true God-mate in this life
without any of God's help or guidance is like trying to
find a needle in a haystack. In other words, you will never
find the one person you were meant to be with unless you
first start out by asking God to lead you to that person in
the first place.
Not only is God the only One who knows who this person is
that would be the most suitable and compatible for you in this
life, but He is the only One that can actually lead you to
where this person is located. But yet so many Christians think
they know better than God who they should be marrying in this
life, and as a result, they all end up marrying the wrong
people and they then end up going from one broken marriage to
another trying to find Mr. or Mrs. Right.
And all of these sad tragedies end up occurring because they
simply forgot to do one simple little thing - they forgot to
turn the entire matter over to God and ask Him to lead them to
the mate that He would've had in store for them.
2. Another area where many Christians get
themselves in trouble with the Lord in learning how to ask Him
for different things is that after a certain amount of time,
they start to want to try and do everything on their own -
without any of God's help or guidance. Instead of remaining
humble and accountable to the Lord in their own personal walks
with Him, they now want the challenge of trying to accomplish
everything all on their own efforts and wisdom.
Pride has now entered into their big picture and they now no
longer need God or any of His help to get through this life in
one piece. They are now deciding who they should be marrying,
what kind of jobs they should be taking, and what kinds of
goals and aspirations they should be striving for in this life.
As a result, they no longer ask God for anything and their
prayer life gets completely shut down.
And then sooner or later, it eventually happens. They end up
getting half way up the mountain they are attempting to climb
all on their own efforts and then they end up losing it all.
They end up falling from what they thought was the top of their
personal mountain down to the very bottom of it, literally
losing everything that they had worked so hard to build up.
They end up losing their marriages, their jobs, their
careers, many of their so called friends, and much of the money
and wealth that they had acquired. And again, all of this
occurs because they simply forgot to turn the reigns of their
life over to God for Him to fully handle, and then to ask God
to lead them into the specific areas that He was wanting them
to move in. God knows best as to who you should be marrying in
this life, what jobs you should be taking, and what careers or
vocations you should be entering into.
And again - all of this can be given to you free of charge
direct from God Himself if you will simply enter into this full
surrender with Him, and then ask Him to take complete control
of your life and the direction it will now be heading. As the
very first verse I have listed at the top of this article says,
simply ask and you shall receive. However, if you don't ask,
you will not receive. Sometimes it really is that simple.
All we have to do is be willing to stay in this full
surrender with the Lord, stay humble and accountable in our
walk with Him, and never forget that we will need His help and
guidance on a daily basis to make it into the specific goals
and areas that He will want us to move into in this life.
2. Seeking
If at first you have no luck with the Lord in asking Him for
something specific, then strongly consider going into some kind
of seeking mode with Him to see if that will be what will get
Him to answer your prayer.
Notice in the verse at the top of this article that you if
seek, then you will "find." One of the ways God may
actually want to answer one of your prayers is by leading you
into finding it - and the only way you will be able to find it
is by being willing to go into some kind of seeking mode to
find it.
Here are a few examples:
1. Say you have just lost your job. Your first
step will be to go to God in prayer and ask Him to lead you to
the next job that He will want you to be working in.
After you put the request before Him, God will now tell you
to do one or two things. He will either tell you to just wait,
hold your position and He will bring the next job to you at the
time that He has it set up to come into your life - or He will
tell you to start going into a seeking mode to try and find
it.
If God tells you that He wants you to go into a seeking mode
to try and find it, then this means you will now have to start
knocking on doors and going on interviews. You may have to go
on 7 or 8 interviews before you finally land the job He will
want you to have. He will make sure that you land at the right
spot at the right time. He will lead you to the next right job
as you are seeking after it, and He will make sure that you
find it right at the time that He has it set up to manifest in
your life.
If God already knows where your next job is going to be, why
would He want you going through 7 or 8 interviews before you
actually find it? I believe there are two main reasons for
this.
The first reason is that He may simply want you to go into a
seeking mode in order to show Him that you are willing to
expend some time and energy in order to try and find it. Many
of the times, the Lord doesn't want to always give you a free
lunch.
There are times that you will have to work, sweat and seek
for whatever it is God is wanting to bring your way. And one of
the ways that He will do this is by throwing you into some kind
of seeking mode to try and find whatever it is that He is
wanting to bring your way. There is a price to pay for
everything, and sometimes the price is paid in the actual
seeking of it.
The second reason God may want to throw you into a seeking
mode where you have to go on several interviews is because He
may want you to get your communication skills sharpened up
before you walk into the door that will be your next job.
By going on all of these different interviews, you will
become much more skilled with the interview process, and this
may end up being what will cause you to get the job that He
will really want you to have. But if you have not been willing
to sharpen up your interview skills by going on all of these
different job interviews, then you may not have the right stuff
to convince your new boss that you are going to be the right
man for the job.
God always has His personal reasons for everything that He
does. Be guided by the Holy Spirit as to what kind of chess
moves God wants to make with you and your life.
2. Another area where you may have to go into
some kind of seeking mode in order to try and find it, is once
again, the search for a soul mate.
Say you are 22 years old. You have just asked God to lead
you to the soul mate of His choice, not your choice. You are
now willing to be fully guided by the Holy Spirit to try and
find this person. You have now fully committed this request
into the hands of God the Father, and you will now let Him make
the call as to who you should be marrying in this life.
Once you do this, God will have you take one of two
approaches. He may simply tell you to wait, hold your position
and that you do not need to be dating or getting entangled with
anyone else in a dating relationship, and that He will lead you
to this person at the time that He has it set up to occur. Or
He could possibly have you go into some kind of seeking mode to
find this person.
If you are 22 years old, and God has it set up for you to
meet this person 10 years later when you turn 32, you will have
10 years to kill during that time. During those 10 years, God
may want you to actually date a few people.
One of the reasons He may want you to date a few other
people is that you may need to grow and mature in how you
relate to others in a romantic type relationship. You may need
to learn a few things. You may need a few rough edges in your
personality smoothed out and cleaned up before He finally
matches you up with the person of His choice.
When you go into this type of seeking mode with the Lord,
you will never know where, when, or how you will meet your true
God-mate. God now has thrown you into an official seeking mode,
and all you know is that you will find this person at the
prescribed time that God has it set up to occur as you are
seeking after him or her. But if you are not willing to go into
a seeking mode to try and find this person - you may never get
this prayer request answered by God after you put the initial
request on His altar.
This lack of being willing to go into a seeking mode
is what is causing many Christians to miss out on some of
the bigger and better blessings that God would have in
store for them in this life.
This is why I believe that the Lord has put both the
"seeking modes" and "knocking modes" all together in the
verse at the top of this article right next to the
"asking mode." Sometimes you will have to be willing to
ask, seek and knock before God will move to fully answer
your prayer.
So the next time you have a major prayer request to put
before the Lord, examine and analyze, and try to pick up from
the Holy Spirit, whether or not you will need to go into any
kind of seeking mode with God in order to try and get Him to
want to answer your specific prayer.
3. Knocking
The last and final principle in the above verse is the
"knocking mode." I believe the knocking mode is another
higher level of intensity in this prayer secret.
The word "knock" in one of my Bible dictionaries
means to "rap on a door." And the above verse is
definitely implying knocking on a door when it says that if you
knock, then it will be "opened" to you.
When you knock on a door, look very closely as to what
happens. Next time you knock on someone's door, watch how many
times you naturally and instinctively want to knock. You will
naturally want to knock at least two to four times. You will
not knock just one time. Try knocking just one time and see how
unnatural it feels.
Knocking thus means that you are asking and possibly seeking
more than one time for whatever it is that you are asking God
for. The two examples I gave above about going on several
interviews in order to try and find God's next job for you, or
being willing to date several other people before God leads you
to the mate of His choice are two perfect examples of putting
this knocking principle into full operation.
Sometimes not only will God have you go into some kind of
seeking mode before He will grant your prayer request, but He
may also have you go into a full scale knocking mode where you
are seeking more than one time in a certain direction.
In other words, you may have to try something more than one
time before God will answer the prayer. God may want to see how
much of an intense desire you really have for the prayer
request by watching how much desire and intensity you show Him
in your seeking and knocking after it.
Conclusion
So how do you know which of these three modes to go into
when you decide to approach God the Father with a specific
prayer request?
For those of you who have established a good inside
connection to the Holy Spirit, many of the times you can pick
it up directly from Him as to which of the three modes you will
need to go into on a specific prayer request to the Lord.
Sometimes you will be able to read and pick it up from Him that
all you will need to do is ask God one or two times, and you
will not need to go into any kind of seeking and/or knocking
mode to get God to answer your prayer.
However, there will be other times that you will feel led to
go into a seeking mode with God before He will grant the answer
to your prayer. And not only will the Holy Spirit help to let
you know when you will need to go into some kind of seeking
mode with God, but He will also help guide and direct you once
you go into that seeking mode so you can learn everything that
God will want teach you, and then eventually get to where God
wants to lead you to before He will be willing to grant the
prayer request.
In other words, if God wants you to go into some kind of
dating mode before He brings your true soul mate to you, then
the Holy Spirit will let you know which people God will want
you to date so that you can connect with the right people so
that you can then learn everything that God will want to teach
you before it is His time to match you up with His very
best.
For those of you who have yet to establish this kind of
inner connection with the Holy Spirit, just simply ask God, if
He has not answered your prayer request within a certain amount
of time, if you need to go into any kind of seeking and/or
knocking mode with Him before He will grant your prayer
request. If you ask with a sincere heart, God will let you know
loud and clear as to whether or not you need to only go in one
of these modes with Him, in any two of these modes, or possibly
in all three of these modes with Him.
This ask-seek-knock verse is another powerful piece of
revelation being given to us by our Lord. In this revelation
are three powerful key principles. I believe these three
principles are giving us a major secret in how we are to
approach God the Father in our personal prayer life with
Him.
 Click here for reprint information
Prayer Secret
#4 - State Your Case Before God
Prayer Secret
#2 - Will of God
Sinner's Prayer
| Explanation
Michael Bradley
Bible Teaching and
Bible Commentary,
Over 150 Free Bible
Lessons
Scripture taken from New King James
Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
License.
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