In Luke 11:9 Jesus said, “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
When you know the will of God for any particular situation, you “ask” and you receive. Very simple, but we complicate it. James, in 1:6 tells us “… ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” In 4:2 the same writer tells us that “you have not because you ask not.” Again, in 4:3 “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
First John 3:22 declares “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” Later in 5:14 John says “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:” then in 5:15 “And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
To ask and receive these scriptures reveal some important components of the equation. One: you must first ask. Go directly to your Heavenly Father, and ask. Secondly we must ask, not to consume it upon our lusts, but for the will of God to be done. Thirdly, we must ask in Faith, not wavering, but have confidence in the fact that He hears us. Fourthly, how do we know that He hears us? It is this, “we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Finally, if we know that He hears us, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.
Then, when we know that He hears us, and know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him, we “Knock” until the answer comes. When you know the will of God for a particular thing, you ask and there appears to be a closed door, knock. And not just knock, but keep on knocking until someone answers the door. This kind of prayer takes extreme measures such as fasting, persevering tenacity and determination to not give up. See Jesus’ comments in Luke 18 that men ought always to pray and not to faint.
Seek. When one does not have a clear revelation of what God’s will is in a certain instance–such as exactly which wife to take, employment or educational direction to follow and generally anything that is not clearly revealed in or by scriptural investigation, keep on seeking the will of God, seeking an answer to your prayer, until you obtain the answer.
