Ask! Seek! Knock!
‘So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.’ Luke 11:9
Often in the Body of Christ I hear complaints about unanswered prayers. I am sure you hear the same thing or perhaps you are the one with the unanswered prayers. In my own life, when I feel I am not getting my prayers answered, I first check my heart and make sure I am doing all I know to do. That I am seeking the Lord, standing on the Word of God, etc. And if I am doing all I know to do then I am often reminded of two scriptures. One is found in Luke 11:9 and the other in Luke 18. In Luke, chapter 18, Jesus talks about the unjust judge. Remember the story? The judge feared neither God nor man; yet, because the woman wouldn’t be quiet, he granted her request.
Have you ever found yourself in that situation? Perhaps it was with a child. They kept asking and asking and even though you didn’t want to do what they wanted, because they were so persistent, you gave in? I know I did my Mom that way when I was a child. Persistence is important. It is almost impossible to resist someone who refuses to give up, isn’t it? Think about that for a moment. Yet we as Christians often began by asking God for something and the minute opposition arises, we back off. Come on, we have more backbone than that, don’t we? And even if we don’t, we are backed by an Almighty God, as long as we are asking according to His Word, right? Of course, we are!
Let’s look at another scripture found in Luke 11:8 in the King James Version; ‘I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.’
First of all I love that word, importunity! Why? Well, listen to the meanings of that word. It means pressing solicitation, to urge with troublesome frequency, to be firm and unyielding, constancy. And here is my favorite meaning, a fixedness or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or not without great difficulty, firm and usually unreasonable adherence to a purpose, a fixedness that will not yield to persuasion, arguments or other means. I am telling you that is who we are to be to our enemy! Kenneth Hagin called it bulldog faith. We once had English bulldogs, when they get a hold on something, their jaws lock and you can forget it, they don’t let go until they want to, if ever.
We are to be immovable, once we get a hold of a promise of God, no amount of persuasion or opposition should be able to pull us off that promise. We should become so fixed on what God and His Word says that nothing else can move us. Now, you may be thinking, ‘you don’t know what I am going through, you are successful in your ministry, you have a great family, what troubles could you possibly have?’ I have been through some stuff, my friend. And I have learned to stand and resist the enemy and submit to God and His Word, refuse to back off my promises and every time I have taken that kind of stand God has come through and my enemies have been defeated. I am accustomed to fighting and standing and refusing to move. Remember the one meaning of that word? A fixedness that cannot be shaken without great difficulty. If the enemy is going to attack everything you are going after in God, then at least make him work hard for it. Give him no rest – fight. Hold on to the Word of God, refuse to let go. Refuse to give in to the enemy’s schemes…hold fast to the promises of God. They belong to you and the enemy knows that unless he can get you to let go, you will surely have everything you are asking God for. Grab hold and don’t let go!
Okay, let me ask you one more question, but first let me take you back to the scripture in Luke 11:9, ‘So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened unto you.’ How loud are you knocking? Is your knock being heard? You know, the Bible says, ‘the violent take it by force.’ So, again, how loud are you knocking?
I was in a meeting once, Judy Jacobs was preaching, and she began to tap on her microphone with her finger, she was talking about knocking. That sound, magnified in the microphone was loud and persistent and the Lord began to speak to me about the ‘knock of authority.’ Now, I knew exactly what He was saying to me, I could see it, because I had heard of and have actually seen that knock before.
Perhaps, you have seen it on TV – police officers come to a home…and I am here to tell you, police officers have their own personal way of knocking. It is not a tap, tap, tap – No, it is more like…BAM…BAM…BAM…BAM…BAM!!! I don’t care where you are in the house, you would jump out of your skin and go answer the door. They knock like that because they have a badge and a paper that says, ‘I am coming in and the entire county’s legal system is backing me.’ They know their authority in their job, and they use all their authority to get their job done.
The Bible says that we walk in the authority that Jesus died to give us – that tells me that we should have a really loud knock. All heaven should hear when we knock. The enemy should tremble when we knock. When we knock, as it says in Luke 11, whatever we are knocking for our healing, our prosperity, our family being saved…whatever it is, it should hear us when we knock, and start coming toward us. Then, as the Amplified says, we keep on knocking…our stuff…our promises, keep on coming. Be loud! Be persistent! Be unmovable! Be tenacious! Don’t back off and don’t quit asking and don’t quit knocking.
God is not an unjust judge – He is a just God and the Word of God tells me that if I ask – I will receive. If I seek, I will find. If I knock, the door will be opened. I encourage you today, if you have been praying and not seeing your answer, ask again, knock a little louder and let the enemy know that you are a person of importunity, you are firm and unyielding, constant and fixed to the point that you cannot be shaken. It is the truth, when you are standing in the authority of Jesus Christ and the Word of God – that is exactly what you are, and all the power and authority of heaven is backing you…now STAND!
