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.
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