I noticed a parallel between two Scripture passages which deal with persistent prayer.
The first is from a section of the Sermon on the Mount. In this magnificent message, Jesus lays out the parameters of the kingdom of God. In Christ’s day, everyone wanted to live in God’s kingdom. Jesus obliges them by describing what that entails.
He covers a variety of topics, including righteousness, persecution, commitment, and fasting. And prayer. Jesus promises that God will reward His disciples when they pray.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” – Matthew 7:7-8
Using three different terms, Christ assures His disciples that when God will hear and answer their prayers
But they must persist.
These three verbs form an acronym. The initials for the three verbs form an acronym. Ask, Seek, and Knock or ASK. It’s easy to remember because it copies the first verb!
Each verb is in the present tense; they convey ongoing activity. In other words, Jesus encourages us to ask and keep on asking, to seek on a continual basis, and to knock and knock and knock . . .
Until when?
Well, when God answers!
We don’t have to ask when we have the gift in our hands. Why seek for something we’ve already found? And once the door opens, we walk in.
How radical is this teaching? Did Jesus surprise His hearers?
Not if they knew the Scriptures. Jesus didn’t invent a doctrine about prayer. Rather, He paraphrased a verse penned centuries earlier.
“One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” – Psalm 27:4
The psalmist casts his prayer as asking and seeking something from God. These parallel what Jesus spoke.
But David omits knocking, something Christ deemed essential. Why didn’t he include it? A better question–did he exclude knocking as an element of prayer?
The context suggests he didn’t.
This verse mentions “the house of the Lord” and “His temple.” The introductory line ascribes Psalm 27 to David, but the temple wasn’t built in his day. The tabernacle, which was a large tent, was the center of worship. David amassed the materials for the temple and handed them to his son Solomon who oversaw its construction.
This doesn’t deny David’s authorship of the 27th Psalm. He composed it but scribes could have edited and expanded it. The main point is the issue of knocking: present in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, absent from David’s Psalm.
But again, the psalmist refers to “the house of the Lord” and “His temple.” What do we have to do before we enter a house that doesn’t belong to us? We have to knock! This informs the owner that we’re on his or her property and would like to come in.
So it is with the Lord’s temple. When we knock in prayer, we’re telling God that we’d like to enter and–do what? David wanted to move in, gaze at God’s beauty, and seek Him out. David’s heart focused on the Lord, not on his personal requests.
Applying this to Christ’s teaching, we can rejoice that He promises God’s provisions to those who request them. But shouldn’t our relationship with God be our greatest concern? Isn’t that the main purpose of prayer?
When we integrate these two passages of Scripture, we learn how to make God our priority in prayer. With that motivation, we have the freedom to communicate all our needs to Him. And we have the confidence, guaranteed by Jesus Himself, that God will hear and answer.
All we have to do is keep on ASKing.
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