Just Ask

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

JUST ASK

Matt 7:7-8

7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

NIV

Jesus has more to say about asking and what God will do, but for now, let's camp out on these first words about asking. It sure seems as simple as Jesus says, if we ask, it will be given to us. If we seek God, we will find Him and if we knock, the door will be opened for us. How complicated can that be? The obvious question that plagues us is what is it that we haven’t been given, and how come we have trouble finding or the door seems stuck every once in awhile? The truth is simple, ask and receive. Knock and it will be opened. When we ask, we better darn sure believe that we will receive, that is take Jesus at his word. What may happen to us is that doubt creeps in and if that does occur, then we are not going to receive it. We need to also go to the gospel according to Mark where in the eleventh chapter he records the words of Jesus where He says to have faith in God so that we can even tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea, but we cannot have doubt. It is the same here about asking, we must have faith that God is going to give. We must have faith when we knock. If there is doubt, we are sunk, we are SOL, simply out of luck. Doubt is a terrible thing; it has to be the work of either Satan or self. The thing is that we cannot even have faith without God. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he makes it clear that we should not think too highly of ourselves, but to think of ourselves with sober judgment according to the measure of faith God has given us. God even gives us our faith; we cannot even muster up faith by ourselves. It is not our faith, but the faith God measures out to us. We cannot help but believe that he measures out the same amount to each of us because He does not show favoritism. Therefore, the conclusion is that if we do not believe that when we ask, we will receive, then we are wasting that faith that God already has measured out to us. Of course, we also have to remember that we cannot ask with wrong motives, as James points out. We must get rid of every ounce of doubt, leave none of it within, and do not let it creep back in. It is good to remind ourselves of all that God has already done when we asked him before. This is one time it is best to rest on God's laurels, rest on all the asking we did in the past and all the times we received from God that which we asked. It helps strengthen that faith God measured out to us. Faith in some sense is like a muscle. We do have to exercise it or it will simply wither away. We can squander this faith if we do not use it. God gave it to us so we could use it, so come here faith, go away doubt, and just ask.