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Praying With Confidence

Matthew 7:7-11

We sometimes get impatient in our prayer life. We might get angry or just throw up our hands and decide God is not listening to us when He doesn't answer our prayers immediately or in the exact way we hoped.

The truth is that God delights in answering our prayers and has provided plenty of promises that should motivate us to talk with Him.

If we understand what God's Word says in today's passage from Matthew 7, we can pray with confidence.

To ASK is the easy part. We ask for aid in our jobs, or for the protection of our children. We ask to be drawn closer to God.

Then, to SEEK is the next step—the action stage—of asking. Often we need to do something before God will bring about an answer to our prayers.

For instance, if we ask "God, please help me understand Scripture," we must then open the Bible and begin to read.

Finally, to KNOCK demonstrates that we are coming to Him in a sense of dependence. We recognize that we cannot manipulate an answer to our petitions, but we must rely upon God's power.

Further, our ability to knock is unique—our God is personal and intensely interested in us.

  Jesus uses the words ask, seek, and knock in the present active imperative tense.

That means "ask and keep on asking; seek and keep on seeking; knock and keep on knocking."

In Scripture, prayer is compared to incense, which implies an unbroken stream that flows from us to heaven.

Are you providing a continuous fragrance to the Lord with your prayers?

Thought I would share with you these words today, hope they help you as they helped me.

Love in Christ,

Joyce