Lonnie Riley, USA
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Matthew 7:7
Does God know what He wants to do in your town? Does God know what He wants to do in your life? In your family? The obvious answer is, “Yes.” Then, what is the problem? It is that we do not know what God knows. If we only knew what God knows, it would be a done deal. If He knows, and we want to do what He wants done, then how do we find out what He wants?
The answer is found in Matthew 7. In this passage, we find the means through which believers can become aware of what God knows and wants to do in their specific circumstances.
Jesus tells us to ask, to seek, and to knock. This is not saying the same thing in three ways, as many people think. Rather, it is a three-stage process of finding out what God knows and what He wants to do in our lives. If you are always asking what to do next, it is because you don’t know what God knows. Once you know what God knows, the answer to that question will be settled.
Ask. What should we ask? How should we ask? How can we know if what we want is the will of God? These are questions believers often ask. When Belinda and I are faced with a need and want to know what God knows about it, as we pray we ask ourselves three questions: Is this prayer unselfish in nature? Does this prayer honor God? Is this prayer biblically correct?
Seek. To seek is to look intently for something specific. It is to be alert to the possibility of finding it. It is to watch with purpose. When you seek/wait on God, you watch Him connect the dots of what He has already told you that He will do. Just as the woman expected to find the lost coin and the shepherd expected to find the lost sheep (Luke 15), so we must live each day expecting God to do specific things in and through our lives that only He can do.
Knock. Knocking implies action. After you see God connect all the dots, then you know exactly what to do next—it’s time to act. The faith principle is this: don’t do anything until you see God do something; then, when He does something, you will know exactly what you are to do. That is knocking.
Ask. Seek. Knock. This is the process of prayer. This is how we learn what God knows, that what He knows is already a done deal, and that we must walk into that done deal. Once you are into the flow, the process keeps repeating itself. You receive an impression, which becomes a burden. You test the burden to see if it is of God. You wait and watch in anticipation of what God is going to reveal. In the beginning, the challenge is to wait. Later, the challenge becomes just keeping up. That’s how faith becomes a lifestyle.