Upside Down - Bold Prayer and God’s Better Blessings
Our main passage of scripture is found in Matthew 7:7-11.
Matthew 7:7-11 (NLT2)
“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? 10 Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! 11 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.
In this passage, Jesus teaches that God wants to have an ongoing, fresh prayer relationship with you and me, and he chooses to use three ACTION words.
ASK. SEEK. KNOCK. God does not desire that we have a weak, muffled, meager prayer life. Rather…
God invites bold prayer
ASK, and it will be given.
SEEK and you will find.
KNOCK, it will be opened.
My childhood was filled with so much disappointment. I would describe what I wanted for my birthday, Christmas, or special events – and never get it. My dad would promise to quit drinking, but he never kept his promise.
And, even though I have been saved since 1991, I have found that the disappointment from my childhood often spills over into my relationship with God. WHICH is wrong! God wants me to keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking in my prayer life.
God wants you to keep on asking and never take silence for an answer. God wants you to act like a child in a grocery store and keep asking Him for the same thing over and over again until you get a response.
God invites you to be bold and persistent. Aside from Jesus teaching us to be persistent, we also see that…
God promises to respond
Matthew 7:8 (NLT2)
For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Jesus promises that God will respond if we KEEP ON asking, seeking, and knocking. But God doesn’t always respond the way we want him to, does he?
We ask God to give us the correct answers to tests we have not studied for, and get an “F.”
We ask that the police officer to let us off for speeding in a school zone, but we get a ticket.
Or, even deeper, we ask for the cancer to be healed, but the cancer remains.
We ask for our spouse to turn to the Lord, but they file for divorce.
So how do we understand this passage if we have asked and not received the answer we want? It is important to understand this passage through the context of the rest of the Bible. James, the brother of Jesus, told early followers of Jesus why their prayers did not seem to work at times.
James 4:2b-3 (NLT2)
…Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
James explains that we don’t have what we want because sometimes we don’t ask God for it…and other times we don’t have what we want because we have selfish motives.
Confessionally, my struggle is failing to ask God for it. Maybe you struggle with unanswered prayers because you have selfish motives – but my struggle is asking God to move in specific ways in my life.
Why? I believe God is able to answer my prayers. I believe He loves me and wants to provide for me. But even since I became a follower of Jesus, I have experienced grave disappointment.
I prayed against the miscarriage of our first pregnancy. We still lost the baby.
I prayed God would reverse and cure my daughter of Type 1 Diabetes. And two more of my daughters were diagnosed.
I prayed that God would change the heart of the Co-Pastor who betrayed me, but I was forced to leave…
And somewhere along the way, I stopped asking boldly, because I didn’t want to be disappointed again. But preparing this message, God showed me that I have let silence shape my prayer life more than Scripture.
See, the truth is if we had not had that first miscarriage, we would not have been blessed with my four amazing daughters. If God had changed the heart of my co-pastor, I would not experience the blessing of serving Beach Church and seeing hundreds of lives changed. And the truth is, we are still waiting for God to redeem the diagnosis of the disease of my children fully, but my kids have learned to be resilient and are the four toughest kids I have ever encountered.
Those times you do not get what you want from God, understand that we cannot see the BIG PICTURE the way God DOES. What seems like a dark valley and a terrible thing in the present might actually be a blessing in the long run.
God knows how to bless better than you
Do you give everything to your children that they ask for? When you go grocery shopping and your kids tag along, do you buy them everything they ask for? What if they kept asking for sour-patch gummies?
But, isn’t it true, if they kept on asking…finally, maybe to shut them up, you might give in and buy it for them? What if they were nine years old, tagged along with you, and asked you to buy them a pack of cigarettes? Would you eventually give in? Of course not.
You wouldn’t because you know how to bless your children better than they do. You know what’s best for them, even if they are persistent in asking, knocking, and seeking. God is the same way with our prayer. God loves us too much to say yes to requests that would harm us.
A bad dad may buy a pack of cigarettes for his child. God is not like a bad dad. He wants to bless his children. God wants to bless you with peace, love, joy, and happiness. So, as you pray, trust that God knows what is best for you. And keep the dialogue going with God. Keep asking, seeking, and knocking, because in the middle of it all, you will grow in your relationship with Him, and that is what He is seeking with you to start with!