"ASK, AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU."
"ASK, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?" Matt. 7:7-11. The foregoing scripture presents a wonderfully strong appeal to the human mind. God gives the promises, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." It would seem that these promises are strong enough to inspire faith in any one. There is not a condition in them on God's part. The only conditions are with us. He bids us "ask." That is our part. But on His part God says, "It shall be given you." His promise is positive. It is unconditional just as soon as we do the asking. He does not tell us He will give it to us if He can, but simply says, "It shall be given him." "For every one that asketh receiveth." It is not the specially-favored ones, not those merely who have wealth and influence, but "every one." And so it is with him who seeks. He has the unconditional promise that he shall find. "And to him that knocketh it shall be opened." These promises place all the exhaustless resources of heaven at the command of the one who comes to our heavenly Father, asking, and seeking, and knocking. The Lord exempts nothing. He reserves nothing. All of God's great universe of "good things" is our bank account, and when we make our demand, when we ask, the cashier is always ready to honor the check. There is never any protest, but the cheerful giving of the thing asked is the invariable rule of our divine Father. But I hear you say, "I have often asked God for things that I did not receive; then how can the promises be always and invariably true?" Perhaps you asked our heavenly Father for something He did not possess. Observe in the last part of the scripture quoted that it is only "good things" that the Lord has. What you asked for seemed to you, no doubt, to be good. But our human perceptions are so defective that we can not always be sure of what is purely and truly good. And if we have not received what we have asked, it is because we have asked for something that is not good. Earthly parents often give things that are not for the best to their children because they tease for them. They know when they are making the gift that the child would be better off without it; but their misguided affections give way under the importunity of the child, and he is allowed to have that which is an injury rather than a benefit. And how often in after years have those children been forced in bitterness to say, "How sorry I am that father and mother allowed me to have my own way! I wish they had stood for the right, and not yielded to my clamors." But we can trust our heavenly Father; for He has nothing but "good things" to give. He deals in no other kind of wares. And "every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."