February 25 2025

Tuesday February 25

The Promise of Prayer

Luke 11:9-13

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 to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"

In Luke 11:1-13, the Lord is not only teaching His disciples about prayer, but He is also giving us some powerful incentives to learn to pray. For years, when I have told someone that I’m praying for them, they have often responded with, “Thanks so much, I really need your prayers right now”. And I have often replied to them, “Well, I need the practice too!” I’m convinced that the best way to learn to be good at anything in life is to work at it, to be disciplined to practice the same thing over and over again. That is why we practice any sport before we get on the playing field. And it is why I get a little nervous when I heard that “doctors practice medicine”. I would rather have them “perform” on me rather than “practice” on me. I’m saying all this to say, the best way to learn to pray is to pray! To pray daily and continuously. This is what the above verses in Luke 11:9-13 are about.

First, the Lord gives us the pattern of prayer (vv. 1-4). Secondly, He gives the persistence of prayer (vv. 5-8). Now Jesus is giving us the promise of prayer (vv. 9-13). After Jesus tells the story or parable of the friend who is asking his neighbor friend at midnight for three loaves of bread for his tired and weary friend who has showed up at his house unexpectedly, you might get the idea that our heavenly Father is reluctant to answer our prayers, and we have pester Him to get His attention. But with what the Lord says in these next verses, should put that wrong conclusion to rest. Our Father is heaven is not a reluctant Giver, He is a ready Giver.

I love verse 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 to you.” The tenses of the verbs are important here: "Keep on asking... keep on seeking... keep on knocking." In other words, don't come to God only in the midnight emergencies, but keep in constant communion with your Father. Jesus called this "abiding" (John 15:1-18), and Paul exhorted, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). As we pray, God will either answer or show us why He cannot answer. Then it is up to us to do whatever is necessary in our lives so that the Father can trust us with the answer.

The main thing about prayer is not getting what we want or need, but true prayer is first and foremost about communion with our holy heavenly Father! Spending time in His presence! God’s delays are not always His denials. Maybe He has noticed that the only time we spend time praying is when we desperately need something, and He enjoys our asking so much, and our attitude of dependence upon Him, that He waits to answer so we will learn to spend more time with Him!

We can’t help but notice that this lesson on prayer closes again with the emphasis on God as Father (vv. 11-13). Because He knows us and loves us, we never need to be afraid of the answers that He gives. Again, Jesus argued from the lesser to the greater: if an earthly father gives what is best to his children, surely the Father in heaven will do even more. Here we are also impressed with the “simplicity of prayer”. We come to our heavenly Father in childlike faith. When a baby or a child cries, the mother instinctively interprets that cry and knows the need of the child. The child is hungry and needs milk, or needs a diaper change, or just needs assurance of love and wants to be picked up!  Our Father in heaven knows how to interpret our cries in prayer and knows what our need is even before we ask!

If our human father knows how to give us good things when we ask, “how much more” does our heavenly Father know how to give us good things. In these verses we are reminded of our heavenly Father’s goodness, His generosity, and His greatness! The greatest gift first given to the early disciples was called, “the Promise of the Father which you heard from Me” (Acts 1:4). We are also heirs of this same “Promise” which is the “gift of the Holy Spirit”.

According to Matthew 7:11, I believe this means that I am continuously asking and receiving from my heavenly Father “all the good things” that come with the Holy Spirit who now lives inside of me as a believer! (Ephesians 3:14-19).

Have you ever received the “Promised Gift of the Holy Spirit”?

God bless!