Young People's Group

Asking And Receiving

by Pastor Mitch
July 03, 2015

Believing That God The Father Will Respond When We Pray

Do we really believe that God the Father will hear us when we pray? We should. He will indeed respond if we pray to Him with faith and love. This was a vital principle that the Lord Jesus taught His disciples in the text of Matthew 7. In the previous chapter, He had taught His disciples to pray in the secret place and according to the “Lord’s prayer”. The challenge was to get down to praying.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” 
Matthew 7:7

The words “ask”, “seek” and “knock” are all in the Greek Imperative present tense. The disciples were meant to strongly entreat the Father in prayer and to keep doing so. They were also to put in effort to seek for what they ask. And when things are not forthcoming, they were to put in even greater effort by “knocking on doors”. The use of the three “and”s connect the three types of effort to the result asked for. The one who continuously asks from God will receive from Him as a result. The one who continuously seeks Him will find what he seeks as a result. And the one who knocks will have “doors” opened as a result. The apostle John explained further that each time when we ask, we receive because we keep His commandments and ask for those things which please Him (1 John 3:22). Let’s believe that we will receive if we ask and seek for those things according to His ways.

Relating To God As Father In Prayer

“Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 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 7:9-11

1. Cultivating A Deep Father And Son Relationship In Prayer

Human fathers even though they are evil in their own way would still give good gifts to their own sons. When a son asks an earthly father for bread, he would not give a stone, nor a serpent for a fish. An earthly father instinctively knows how to give what his son requests. By a greater degree, the Lord God as our heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts to His children when they ask for them.

2. Confidence In God As Father In Answering Our Prayers

There should be the confidence that the Lord God by His grace would indeed give us specifically when we pray to Him. Because He is our heavenly Father and He loves us as His children, He would answer us when we ask in faith. We can have this confidence in the Lord God in hearing our prayer (1 John 5:14). We are to ask according to His will and His ways.

Following The Example Of The Lord Jesus In Relating To God As Father In Prayer

The Lord Jesus did not just teach this principle. He exemplified this. He sought to pray to the Father on a daily basis. He would seek the Father morning by morning (Isaiah 50:4). He would wake up a long while before daybreak to speak to His Father and ask of Him (Mark 1:35). The Lord Jesus also gave thanks to God the Father because He would hear His prayers always (John 11:41-42). Let’s learn from the Lord Jesus and follow His example in relating to God as our heavenly Father. It is through discipleship that we can learn how to pray as such. Let’s know the Lord God as our Father well enough that when we pray, He would also always hear us. Let’s learn to practise prayer well through learning as disciples of the Lord Jesus.

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