About Prayer

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened ... If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:7-11)
Notice two things about this verse:

1.  First, there are three specific conditions that the Lord is laying out - asking, seeking and knocking.
2.  Second, all three of these conditions are listed in one sentence. This means that all three of these conditions are being purposely put together in one sentence in order to try and tell us something.

If you ask, and then you receive, why would you ever need to seek or knock? Or if you seek, and then you end up finding something, why would you ever need to go to the next condition, which would be some kind of knocking in order to be able to get the door to be opened up for you.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask God for something and He will then answer the prayer. You thus will not have to go into any kind of seeking and/or knocking modes with Him to try and get Him to answer the prayer. Sometimes it will literally be that simple.
However, at other times you may ask God for something, but then you do not receive it. If God is not answering your prayer the first time around when you are pressing in and asking Him for consider trying one or two of the next two conditions - either seeking and/or knocking.
If you do not receive any type of an answer from the Lord on a specific prayer request after asking Him several times, try considering going into either a seeking and/or knocking mode with Him to try and get Him to grant you the prayer request. Sometimes the answers to your prayers will only come if you start to do some type of seeking after it.
Many Christians walk away too soon from their prayer altars with the Lord. They ask the Lord once or twice for whatever it is they are wanting from Him - and when He doesn't answer their prayer off of their initial request, they walk away thinking that He doesn't want to answer their prayer - not realizing that maybe the Lord was really wanting to answer their prayer in the first place, but that He was wanting them to go into some kind of seeking and/or knocking mode to get Him to release it to them.
So the next time you approach the Lord in prayer for something very specific, make sure that you consider all three of these conditions - asking, seeking and knocking.
Sometimes the Lord will answer your prayer just off of the first condition - asking, and you will not have to go into any kind of seeking and/or knocking mode with Him to get Him to answer the prayer. But then there will be other times that He will want you to go into some kind of seeking and/or knocking mode with Him before He will answer your prayer.
Let’s look specifically at each of these three.

1. Asking

This first condition, asking, is without question, the easiest of them all. Sometimes all you have to do is ask the Lord once or twice for something that you are really wanting. If the prayer request is in His perfect will for your life, then many of the time the Lord will answer your prayer simply off one or two prayer requests and that will be it.
However, as simple as this basic principle is for many Christians to fully understand, there still are many Christians who are violating this basic simple principle with the Lord.

This revelation that we are receiving from the Lord is another one that has two sides to it. Again, it is like looking at a two sided coin. On the one side of the coin is "asking." Simply ask the Lord for whatever it is you are needing or wanting, and He will grant the prayer request as long as the request is in His will for your life.

But the other side of the coin is that sometimes the Lord will not bring a desire or request that you may have - all because you have failed to ask Him for it in the first place. Here is the verse from our Bible that gives us the flip side to this revelation:
"Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." (James 4:2)

This verse is giving us two major revelations. The first revelation is that sometimes you do not receive something from God simply because you did not ask Him for it. You either simply forgot to ask Him for it, or you chose, for whatever your personal reasons may have been at the time, not to ask Him for it. As a result, your request and desire is never brought your way because God was the only One that could have brought it to you in the first place - and you chose not to get the ball rolling with Him by asking Him to bring it to you.

The second piece of revelation that is coming off of this verse is that maybe you have presented your prayer request before God, but this request was not in God's perfect will for your life. You may be wanting something for the wrong reason or the wrong motive, like the last part of this verse is implying when it says that the prayer request might be for your own selfish and worldly pleasures.

This verse is telling us that when we do this, we are asking "amiss." According to some of the different Bible dictionaries, the word "amiss" means we are asking for something "wrongly" or "mistakenly."

This is why all of your prayer requests have always got to line up with the perfect will of God for your life. God always knows what is best for you in all situations. And sometimes God will choose not to answer a specific prayer request you may have because it may not be in your best interests - even though you may not be able to see it at the time that you are asking Him for it.
As simple as this basic principle is to fully grasp and understand by everyone, it really is quite amazing how many Christians are not getting many of their basic needs, wants and desires met because they have either simply forgot to ask God to help them receive the desire in the first place or they have chosen not to ask God for the desire.

Christians get themselves in trouble because they start to want to try and do everything on their own - without any of God's help or guidance. Instead of remaining humble and accountable to the Lord in their own personal walks with Him, they now want the challenge of trying to accomplish everything all on their own efforts and wisdom.

Pride has now entered into their big picture and they now no longer need God or any of His help to get through this life in one piece. They are now deciding who they should be marrying, what kind of jobs they should be taking, and what kinds of goals and aspirations they should be striving for in this life. As a result, they no longer ask God for anything and their prayer life gets completely shut down.

And then sooner or later, it eventually happens. They end up getting half way up the mountain they are attempting to climb all on their own efforts and then they end up losing it all. They end up falling from what they thought was the top of their personal mountain down to the very bottom of it, literally losing everything that they had worked so hard to build up.
They end up losing their marriages, their jobs, their careers, many of their so called friends, and much of the money and wealth that they had acquired. And again, all of this occurs because they simply forgot to turn the reigns of their life over to God for Him to fully handle, and then to ask God to lead them into the specific areas that He was wanting them to move in. God knows best as to who you should be marrying in this life, what jobs you should be taking, and what careers or vocations you should be entering into.

And again - all of this can be given to you free of charge direct from God Himself if you will simply enter into this full surrender with Him, and then ask Him to take complete control of your life and the direction it will now be heading. As the first verse says, simply ask and you shall receive. However, if you don't ask, you will not receive. Sometimes it really is that simple.
All we have to do is be willing to stay in this full surrender with the Lord, stay humble and accountable in our walk with Him, and never forget that we will need His help and guidance on a daily basis to make it into the specific goals and areas that He will want us to move into in this life.

2. Seeking

If at first you have no luck with the Lord in asking Him for something specific, then strongly consider going into some kind of seeking mode with Him to see if that will be what will get Him to answer your prayer.
if you seek, then you will "find." One of the ways God may actually want to answer one of your prayers is by leading you into finding it - and the only way you will be able to find it is by being willing to go into some kind of seeking mode to find it.
Here are a few examples:

1.  Say you have just lost your job. Your first step will be to go to God in prayer and ask Him to lead you to the next job that He will want you to be working in.

After you put the request before Him, God will now tell you to do one or two things. He will either tell you to just wait, hold your position and He will bring the next job to you at the time that He has it set up to come into your life - or He will tell you to start going into a seeking mode to try and find it.

If God tells you that He wants you to go into a seeking mode to try and find it, then this means you will now have to start knocking on doors and going on interviews. You may have to go on 7 or 8 interviews before you finally land the job He will want you to have. He will make sure that you land at the right spot at the right time. He will lead you to the next right job as you are seeking after it, and He will make sure that you find it right at the time that He has it set up to manifest in your life.

If God already knows where your next job is going to be, why would He want you going through 7 or 8 interviews before you actually find it? It could be that He may simply want you to go into a seeking mode in order to show Him that you are willing to expend some time and energy in order to try and find it. There are times that you will have to work, sweat and seek for whatever it is God is wanting to bring your way. And one of the ways that He will do this is by throwing you into some kind of seeking mode to try and find whatever it is that He is wanting to bring your way. There is a price to pay for everything, and sometimes the price is paid in the actual seeking of it.

The second reason God may want to throw you into a seeking mode where you have to go on several interviews is because He may want you to get your communication skills sharpened up before you walk into the door that will be your next job.
By going on all of these different interviews, you will become much more skilled with the interview process, and this may end up being what will cause you to get the job that He will really want you to have. But if you have not been willing to sharpen up your interview skills by going on all of these different job interviews, then you may not have the right stuff to convince your new boss that you are going to be the right man for the job.

God always has His personal reasons for everything that He does. Be guided by the Holy Spirit as to what kind of chess moves God wants to make with you and your life.

This lack of being willing to go into a seeking mode is what is causing many Christians to miss out on some of the bigger and better blessings that God would have in store for them in this life.

This is why I believe that the Lord has put both the "seeking modes" and "knocking modes" all together in the verse at the top of this article right next to the "asking mode." Sometimes you will have to be willing to ask, seek and knock before God will move to fully answer your prayer.

So the next time you have a major prayer request to put before the Lord, examine and analyze, and try to pick up from the Holy Spirit, whether or not you will need to go into any kind of seeking mode with God in order to try and get Him to want to answer your specific prayer.

3. Knocking

The last and one is the "knocking mode." I believe the knocking mode is another higher level of intensity in this prayer secret.
The word "knock" in one of my Bible dictionaries means to "rap on a door." And the above verse is definitely implying knocking on a door when it says that if you knock, then it will be "opened" to you.

When you knock on a door, look very closely as to what happens. Next time you knock on someone's door, watch how many times you naturally and instinctively want to knock. You will naturally want to knock at least two to four times. You will not knock just one time. Try knocking just one time and see how unnatural it feels.

Knocking thus means that you are asking and possibly seeking more than one time for whatever it is that you are asking God for. Sometimes not only will God have you go into some kind of seeking mode before He will grant your prayer request, but He may also have you go into a full scale knocking mode where you are seeking more than one time in a certain direction.
In other words, you may have to try something more than one time before God will answer the prayer. God may want to see how much of an intense desire you really have for the prayer request by watching how much desire and intensity you show Him in your seeking and knocking after it.

So how do you know which of these three modes to go into when you decide to approach God the Father with a specific prayer request?

For those of you who have established a good inside connection to the Holy Spirit, many of the times you can pick it up directly from Him as to which of the three modes you will need to go into on a specific prayer request to the Lord. Sometimes you will be able to read and pick it up from Him that all you will need to do is ask God one or two times, and you will not need to go into any kind of seeking and/or knocking mode to get God to answer your prayer.

However, there will be other times that you will feel led to go into a seeking mode with God before He will grant the answer to your prayer. And not only will the Holy Spirit help to let you know when you will need to go into some kind of seeking mode with God, but He will also help guide and direct you once you go into that seeking mode so you can learn everything that God will want teach you, and then eventually get to where God wants to lead you to before He will be willing to grant the prayer request.
For those of you who have yet to establish this kind of inner connection with the Holy Spirit, just simply ask God, if He has not answered your prayer request within a certain amount of time, if you need to go into any kind of seeking and/or knocking mode with Him before He will grant your prayer request. If you ask with a sincere heart, God will let you know loud and clear as to whether or not you need to only go in one of these modes with Him, in any two of these modes, or possibly in all three of these modes with Him.

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