Your Will be Done

Matthew 7:7-8

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

It is amazing how easy it is to develop false doctrine, let us take the first eight words of the above sentence and from that decide what we believe about prayer.  All I’ve got to do is ask and God is required to perform at my request, now is that irrational?  If you answer anything but that’s crazy for me to believe such foolishness, would make me the master and God the puppet.  But there is another danger, that may even be a greater wrong and that is not to believe Jesus tells the truth, and that person will not ask, or if they do will ask not for the will of God, but the desires of their flesh. 

If we look back to Matthew 6:9-10, Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Jesus has given the model prayer, and if we begin our prayer with Dear Father in heaven, You alone are good and perfect, You alone see down the main street of my life, dear Father, my view is so limited by all the big buildings, but you see all that is before me and behind, so I’m putting my hope and desires in You only, Father help my unbelief, change my heart to seek You and except the plans You have for me.

If that is our request, then we will seek and find; knock, and it will be opened to us.  As a new believer in Christ I had a desire to hear the gospel preached and I would often attend what was referred to as a revival meeting, though most of the time, revival was not the result in my heart.  But on one occasion in Odem, Texas, at a little Baptist church, Peter Lord was the speaker and this was his subject, “Do you want God’s hand, or do you desire His face?”  I’m not sure if Psalms 105:4 was where Peter got his text, but look at what is said: “Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.”  Or it may have been taken from 2 Chronicles 7:14, but what matters is that the Holy Spirit tapped my heart and it was clear that I was a seeker of God’s hand, and it is so easy to be such a person.  I would like to share that I no longer am a member of the seeker of His hand club, and my only prayer is to know Him, to sit and worship and love the fellowship of His being, but that would not be totally honest.   

But as we seek His will, and desire His face, He is more loving and more caring than any father on this earth.  Before you answer, look at what Truth has to say on the matter: “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  If you then, who are 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)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice