Day 65 – Knock

Brother Lawrence encouraged others: “Furthermore, we know we can do anything with God’s grace, and he never refuses it to those who earnestly ask him for it. Knock at his door, keep knocking, and I tell you that he will open to you in his time if you do not give up, and that he will give you, all at once, what he held off giving for years.”

God doesn’t need us to do what he wants done. He’s God. He can do anything.

He chooses, however, to limit himself and engage us to do what he wants, so that we learn how to work together with him and fulfill the purposes he designed us to do.

Just as parents guide, counsel, train, prompt, and urge their children to grow into maturity, God calls us to step up and into what he calls us to do.

So it is with prayer. Because God is sovereign, some things will happen with or without our prayers. Yet because of God’s self-limitation, many things will not happen unless we pray! This is God’s intention.

The Lord Jesus invites us into a heavenly partnership in prayer with him. He waits for us to ask. He invites us to seek. He challenges us to knock. If we don’t, he won’t.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).

As we ask in prayer for the desires he gives us, as we seek his face for the hopes he sets within us, as we knock on heaven’s door for the expectations he implants upon us – he will answer! How can he refuse the very requests he gave us.

Just like a child and parent – in the process of asking and receiving, seeking and finding, knocking and opening – we are pulled into deeper relationship with God. And as things change around us, we too are changed. Again, God’s intention.

Ask for provisions. Seek for what has been lost. Knock on the door to gain entrance. Ask and keep on asking. Seek and keep on seeking. Knock and keep on knocking. Persistently, consistently, diligently. Don’t stop. Don’t quit.

Pursue God for answers, for results, for the ability, for effectiveness. Perhaps “he will give you, all at once, what he held off giving for years.”

Action Step: Pray for something beyond you, bigger than you, and expect God to answer in the way he sees best.

This is God’s Word for you today,
Pastor Dave