Seek And You'll Find

Seek and you'll find...
~ Luke 11:9 ~

Zacchaeus was eager to seek...sometimes I wonder if Zacchaeus was peeking around the corner when Jesus was teaching His disciples to ask, seek, and knock, because Zacchaeus did whatever he could do to see Jesus...

The Message paraphrases it like this: He wanted desperately to see Jesus.

Here is the cool thing...Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus...Jesus ended up seeing Zacchaeus...

When Jesus got to the tree, he looked up and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry down. Today is my day to be a guest in your home."

I love the response of Zacchaeus...

Zacchaeus scrambled out of the tree, hardly believing his good luck, delighted to take Jesus home with him.

Where is our tree? Who or what are we seeking? Jesus is right in our midst...are we seeking him? Are we desperate to see Jesus?

In the words of Perry Noble, "When we reach times of desperation we are more likely to seek revelation!!!

Climb your tree...then put your name in the blank as Jesus looks up and says, "_______ hurry down. Today is my day to be a guest in your home."

Ask And You'll Get: Paul's Prayer

One more note before I dig into what it means to "Seek" from our current series on A.S.K.

I want to look at what Paul, one of the Champions of Christ Following, asks for...Amazing Prayer...Pray this for your family, for your community, for God's Kingdom!

From Ephesians 3.14-21, we see that Paul Prays that God would strengthen Christians:

This is the reason I kneel in the presence of the Father from whom all the family in heaven and on earth receives its name.

I’m asking God to give you a gift from the wealth of his glory.

I pray that he would give you inner strength and power through his Spirit. Then Christ will live in you through faith.

I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation. This way, with all of God’s people you will be able to understand how wide, long, high, and deep his love is. You will know Christ’s love, which goes far beyond any knowledge.

I am praying this so that you may be completely filled with God.

Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us.

By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory belongs to God in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time and eternity! Amen.

Ask And You'll Get

Here's what I'm saying:

Ask and you'll get;
Seek and you'll find;
Knock and the door will open.
"Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need.
~ Luke 11:9 ~

Continuing from the last post on Persistent Wrestling, I want to now focus on what Jesus said after He gave the story of a man who was persistent by "waking all the neighbors." From Luke 11.9 above, let's zoom in on the first part: Ask and you'll get.

Ask And You'll Get
What does it mean to ask? Jesus tells us to do it, so we know it must be a good thing to do!!! But we must understand that asking Jesus is not synonymous with the genie in the bottle scenario, where we are granted our wishes no matter what. Quite the contrary. The chief aim of our asking is to Glorify God, not ourselves. In John 17.1-5, Jesus says, "I glorified you [God] on earth By completing down to the last detail What you assigned me to do."

In order to Glorify God, we must put him ahead our of our asking, then we will know exactly how to ask and what to ask for...Below are a few Scriptures that give us some framework in terms of asking. Notice how the asking and the receiving are preceded by putting The Lord first in our lives. By doing so, we have the true framework by what it means to ASK.

John 15.5 "apart from me [Jesus] you can do nothing."

John 15.7-8, Jesus says, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." (emphasis added).

Psalm 37:4 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.

Proverbs 16:3 Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.

Proverbs 1:7 Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Solomon's Shoes
God straight up asks Solomon what he wants. Solomon asks...God is pleased of what Solomon asks for, so God grants him even more! To read the amazing story, click here!

Lets put God first in our asking, since His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55.9)

Next post will focus on "Seeking..."

Persistent Wrestling

But let me tell you, even if he won't get up because he's a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he'll finally get up and get you whatever you need.
~ Luke 11:8 ~

Ask For What You Need
You know what is amazing about Luke 11.8? It comes from a passage of Scripture where Jesus is teaching the disciples how to Pray. Jesus teaches them to Pray what we know as The Lord's Prayer, but right after that, He uses this story found verses 5-8 to bring out a huge teaching about Prayer. Take a look at in context:

Then he said, "Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don't have a thing on hand.'

"The friend answers from his bed, 'Don't bother me. The door's locked; my children are all down for the night; I can't get up to give you anything.'

"But let me tell you, even if he won't get up because he's a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he'll finally get up and get you whatever you need.

Persistence And Wrestling
This blows my mind when it comes to Prayer. We have Jesus Himself teaching us how to Pray, and He is basically telling us to be as persistent as some guy standing his ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors until he gets whatever he needs. It reminds me of The Persistent Widow in Luke 18 and also of Jacob wrestling with God in The Book of Genesis...

"You can't go until you bless me," Jacob replied...And he blessed Jacob.
Genesis 32.22-30

So we see first how Jesus tells us to be persistent in Prayer, then we see how He teaches us to A.S.K...after this story on persistence, Jesus states the following:

Here's what I'm saying:

Ask and you'll get;
Seek and you'll find;
Knock and the door will open. "Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need.

Let's focus on being persistent and wrestling like Jacob today, and then in the next post, lets zoom in on what it means to Ask, Seek, and Knock!

Seize The Day

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
~ Hebrews 11:6 ~

1. Without Faith
2. Impossible To Please God

So do we believe in God? Do we believe He exists?

Hebrews 11.6 says He rewards those who believe in Him, those who believe that He exists...but perhaps the biggest question of all comes from the tail end of the verse...are we earnestly seeking Him?

Now if we believe He exists, do we believe He cares? Well, He must care if He rewards...but again, are we earnestly seeking Him?

We can have faith in Him, we can believe He exists, but if all we are concerned about is our own agenda instead of earnestly seeking Christ, then our faith really does not amount to much.

So where does our faith lead? Does it lead to a cozy all-about-me life that believes in God but will not follow Him, or does it lead to the full life in Christ where we can "Seize the day" for His Glory?

When it comes to seeking Christ and following Him, here is what Jesus tells us:

Jesus said, "No procrastination. No backward looks.
You can't put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day."
Luke 9.62

To please God is to have faith in Him, to be rewarded is to earnestly seek Him...No procrastination...Seize The Day!