{"id":473,"date":"2014-11-17T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=473"},"modified":"2014-11-03T23:58:48","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T23:58:48","slug":"matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus\u2019 exhortation to \u201cask, seek, knock\u201d in prayer seems a carte blanche promise that God will give anything you or I ask for in prayer. The normal Christian life, on the other hand, seems to discredit this promise on a daily basis.<\/p>\n<p>So what gives? Was Jesus lying, or mistaken, or exaggerating for effect? Are we doing something wrong in the ways we \u201cask, seek, and knock\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the problem lies in a 21<sup>st<\/sup> century perception that we\u2019re entitled to immediate gratification, and in our assumption that God will override his good, eternal desires for us in response to our selfish, temporary desires for ourselves. Here\u2019s how Theologian Lawrence O. Richards explains it:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px\">Jesus describes prayer as asking, seeking, and knocking. \u201cAsk\u201d is the act of prayer in its simplest form. \u201cSeek\u201d conveys intensity, and \u201cearnest sincerity.\u201d And \u201cknock\u201d pictures persistence. We knock on the door of heaven and keep on knocking!<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px\">It is important not to mistake what Jesus is saying as laying down conditions which, if met, will move God to respond to us. Jesus is not saying if you ask ardently enough, then God will answer your prayer. He is simply saying that when we feel a need so intensely that it drives us to the Lord again and again, we need not be discouraged even if the answer is delayed. God really does care about those things that matter to His children. And God responds to our requests by giving us good gifts.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus promised that if we \u201cask, seek, knock\u201d then our heavenly Father will respond with \u201cgood gifts\u201d (Matthew 7:11). Our job, then, is to keep asking with sincerity and persistence\u2014and let him worry about when he answers and which good gifts he delivers in response.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[NTL, 41]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus\u2019 exhortation to \u201cask, seek, knock\u201d in prayer seems a carte blanche promise that God will give anything you or I ask for in prayer. The normal Christian life, on the other hand, seems to discredit this promise on a daily basis. So what gives? Was Jesus lying, or mistaken, or exaggerating for effect? Are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,14],"tags":[198,180,111],"class_list":["post-473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matthew","category-theologicalcommentary","tag-bible-promises","tag-prayer","tag-sermon-on-the-mount"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jesus\u2019 exhortation to \u201cask, seek, knock\u201d in prayer seems a carte blanche promise that God will give anything you or I ask for in prayer. The normal Christian life, on the other hand, seems to discredit this promise on a daily basis. So what gives? Was Jesus lying, or mistaken, or exaggerating for effect? Are&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-17T12:00:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-03T23:58:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"Jesus\u2019 exhortation to \u201cask, seek, knock\u201d in prayer seems a carte blanche promise that God will give anything you or I ask for in prayer. The normal Christian life, on the other hand, seems to discredit this promise on a daily basis. So what gives? Was Jesus lying, or mistaken, or exaggerating for effect? Are&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2014-11-17T12:00:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-11-03T23:58:48+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html","name":"Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-11-17T12:00:51+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-03T23:58:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-77-12-ask-seek-knock-theological-commentary.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 7:7-12; Ask, Seek, Knock (Theological Commentary)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}