Matthew 7:7-12 - The Generous Heavenly Father and our prayer

There are always reasons or excuses why people don’t come to God in prayer as regularly as they should. Some people think that their problem is too small to bother God. Others think that God may be irritated by our regular asking. Pride can also be a factor that prevent people from coming to God. Ignorance of the generosity of the Father could be another. Perhaps it’s because they do not know how good the Heavenly Father is. Whether we care to admit it or not, the experience we have with our earthly fathers, to a certain degree, influence the way we see our Heavenly Father. People are prone to think of God the way they have been treated by their earthly fathers. In that way our relationship with our earthly fathers often blurs the real good Heavenly Father.

Having a right image of our Heavenly Father will free us from our reluctance to come to Him. He is ever ready to answer our prayers and meet our needs. Jesus said this in no uncertain terms. So in verse 7, He commands us to ask, to seek and to knock. These verbs should be translated with the present continuous tense. In fact it should rightly be translated this way, “I say to you, ‘Ask and keep on asking…, seek and keep on seeking…, Knock and keep on knocking”. His promise is that everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and everyone who knocks will find an open door. These three words also suggest that we must come to prayer with tenacity, and we must not give up so easily. No matter how long or how difficult our issue may be, our prayers will definitely be answered.

In verses 9-11, the Lord affirms what a good Father God is. Here He compares the Heavenly Father with our earthly ones with two hypothetical situations. He said no earthly father would give their children stone when they request for bread. Nor would they give their children snake when they ask for fish. If earthly fathers would not give their children something harmful in place of their request, it is preposterous to think that our good heavenly Father would. He definitely will not because He is infinitely better and more generous than any earthly father. He will never give us anything contrary to what would meet our needs.   

In the light of what Jesus had said here, what must we do? The answer is obvious. We are to ask, seek and knock. And as we do, expect to be surprised by God. He may not always give us what we think we must have. He will give us what He knows will satisfy what we need, in any given situation. God will never let us down.

What Jesus wants is for us to trust God, to love, live and obey Him. And in regard to our relationship with others in the world, the golden rule must be applied. We must treat others in the same way we expect them to treat us.