What it means to Ask, Seek and Knock for God

Hello everyone, welcome back to another blog!

The theme of this blog in 2024 is a year of increased faith. However, I realised that in order to increase your faith and your trust in God, you have to first get to know him personally for yourself. It is like any other relationship, whether that is a close best friend, family member or your spouse; you trust them because you know them, you took the time to learn and understand who they are as a person and the more you grow with them the more certainty and assured you feel around them. We need to develop the same growth with God.

This year I want to know God better, not just for my faith to be stronger but to build a deeper and more intimate relationship with him. I want to have my own understanding of his word and a more profound revelation of who he is.

Subsequently, I am presently studying the book of Matthew. Matthew is the first book out of the four gospels ‘Matthew, Mark Luke and John.’ These gospels are the only books that represent the life and times of Christ Jesus our Lord. Matthew was a follower of Jesus Christ and a messenger who spread Jesus teachings.

So far I have read up to 7 chapters and it has all been really eye opening, however I want to touch on Matthew 7 verse 7 and 8. Verse 7 reads; ‘Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.’ Verse 8 reads ‘For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.’

This chapter is so beautiful and delightful to read because it exhibits that the Lord God Almighty is a provider and he wants to give us the desires of our hearts that align with his will. He want us to have confidence and that sureness in him, that if we just turn to him and only him he will open doors for us that no one can close (Revelation 3:7-8).

However, I want to break down each element of what it means to Ask, Seek and Knock.

Ask

What does it mean to ask? I looked up what the word ask means and the definition is ‘to say something in order to obtain an answer or some information.’ Nevertheless, when we ask God for something, we require an answer from him. This is the first step in exercising your faith in God as it demonstrates that you need him to make a way for you as you cannot do it on your own, you do not have the power nor the strength. You are exhibiting that you are weak without God. If we didn’t need God we wouldn’t need to ask him for anything.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9 it states: ‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.’ This proposes that we can permit Christ to be strong and solid in our weak places and to not begrudge the Lord for allowing us to experience that weakness, consequently it is okay to ask God for whatever it is you are yearning for and allow him to come into your situation.

Seek

To seek means ‘to attempt to find (something).’ I was watching a sermon on YouTube and the Pastor stated ‘if something can be found that assumes I don’t have it. There are some things God wants to reveal to you, give to you that you don’t yet possess because you are not seeking. Seeking involves hunger.’ This resonated with me because sometimes its not enough to just ‘ask.’ We have to really seek and go after the Lord.

The Bible tells us to ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.’ (Matthew 6:33). This scripture shows that if we Seek God, he will bless us with the fullness of life, he will even give us substantially more than we might ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

Knock

To knock means to ‘strike a surface noisily to attract attention, especially when waiting to be let in through a door.’ The Pastor on the sermon I was watching also made a really good example of how we knock. He stated ‘I have never knocked on a door once, nobody knocks once on any door. This is so true! We always knock on someone’s door twice or three times, sometimes even more than that. We do this to gain attention as the definition tells us and we should have the same proclivity for God. The Lord wants us to knock and to keep pounding until we get an answer. Just like Jacob said in Genesis 32:26:  “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” Knocking goes past hunger and thirst it takes desperation. It’s the stage where we need God to step into our circumstances more than ever. Knocking means to persist and not to give up until something changes.

Now, I want us to go back to verse 8 where it reads: ‘For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.’

Notice how I highlighted three words in pink. Anybody can pray, anyone can ask God for something. That’s the easy bit but notice how God changes the language from everyone to ‘one.’ Whew this part got me excited! God is so intentional in everything he does! This was calculatedly done to single out those who have a little bit more hunger, who is longing for God just that tad bit more. And this is where you will see Gods hand in your circumstances, this is where God will start to open doors for you.

I am so glad that God revealed this to me, because it is so easy to look at the surface when reading the word of God but if you delve a little deeper you will see the fundamental messages that God wants to expose to you. Nonetheless, I pray in the name of Jesus doors will begin to open for you! I pray that you will continuously Ask, Seek and Knock for the Lord and see how he moves in your situation.