Promised Answers - The One Year Worship the King Devotional
Promised Answers
Read: Luke 11:5-13
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Luke 11:9
IN WORD God clothed Himself in human flesh and visited our planet. He was here all along, of course, but not like this. Jesus was seen and heard, not in a mystical sense, but visibly and audibly. And what did God incarnate say to us? “Ask Me, and I will give to you.”
We fail to realize the magnitude of this promise because we often don’t see its results. Oh, we pray. But perhaps not in the spirit Jesus intended, or perhaps with selfish motives, or any number of other conditions that weaken our prayers. Still, the promise is there. Those who persistently, faithfully, humbly come to the Father with a petition are given a guarantee: It will be answered.
We know all the standard ways to place conditions on this promise. He may answer “no,” He may answer “wait,” He may answer “yes, but not in the way you hoped,” or He may actually answer “yes.” When He does, He may not answer right away. After all, this promise has no deadline; prayers we uttered years ago may be answered years from now. But still, the promise is certain. God will answer. Not to do so would make Him a negligent Father. And God has proven throughout history that He is never negligent toward those who seek Him and are called by His name.
IN DEED There’s a temptation to water down this promise to the point where it means very little. All of those conditions—those varying responses we speculate that He might give, and those disqualifying attitudes with which we come to Him—are legitimate aspects of this promise. The abuses are real. But this promise is more real. Don’t let the conditions and the qualifications water it down to the point that it becomes unreal to you. The God who calls Himself our Father is responsive, and He will never drop your prayers unless you drop them first. Be persistent. Be bold. And be ready. God will honor your request.
Pleading the promises of God is the whole secret of prayer.
—MARTYN LLOYD-JONES
