Praying With Confidence
We sometimes get impatient in our prayer life. We might get angry or just throw up our hands and decide God is not listening to us when He doesn’t answer our prayers immediately or in the exact way we hoped.
The truth is that God delights in answering our prayers and has provided plenty of promises that should motivate us to talk with Him.
If we understand what God’s Word says in this passage of Matthew, we can pray with confidence.
To ASK is the easy part. We ask for aid in our jobs, or for the protection of our children. We ask to be drawn closer to God. Then, to SEEK is the next step – the action stage – of asking. Often we need to do something before God will bring about an answer to our prayers. For instance, if we ask “God, please help me to understand Scripture,” we must then open the Bible and begin to read. Finally, to KNOCK demonstrates that we are coming to Him in a sense of dependence.
We recognize that we cannot manipulate an answer to our petitions, but we must rely upon God’s power. Further, our ability to knock is unique – our God is personal and intensely interested in us.
Jesus uses the words ask, seek, and knock in the present active imperative tense. That means “ask and keep on asking; seek and keep on seeking; knock and keep on knocking.” In Scripture, prayer is compared to incense, which implies an unbroken stream that flows from us to heaven. Are you providing a continuous fragrance to the Lord with your prayers?
Rodney Howard Browne and the Revival Ministries International is a ministry that crosses denominational boundaries and geographical borders to fulfill what the Lord has called it to do, to stir up the Church, telling her to get ready for the coming revival.
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