Ask, Seek and Knock

Greetings,

      Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) was considered by his peers and now by new generations as one of the great preachers of the 19^th century.  He built London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle into the world’s larges independent congregation during that century.  Spurgeon was devoted to prayer, writing about it and practicing it.

      During this Lent I invite you to consider this Spurgeon comment on prayer.

                                    “Ask and it will be given to you;

                                    seek and you will find;

                                    knock and the door will be opened to you.”    (Matthew 7:7)

      Let us abound in prayer.  Nothing under heaven pays like prevailing prayer.  He who has power in prayer has all things at his call. 

      Ask for everything you need, whatever it may be: if it is a good and right thing, it is promised to the sincere seeker.  Seek for what Adam lost you by the Fall, and for what you have lost yourself by neglect, by your back-sliding, by your lack of prayer.  Seek till you find the grace you need.  Then knock.  If you seem shut out from comfort, from knowledge, from hope, from God, then knock; for the Lord will open it to you.  Here you need the Lord’s own intervention: you can ask and receive, you can seek and find; but you cannot knock and open- the Lord must Himself open the door, or you are shut out forever.  God is ready to open the door.  There is no cherub with fiery sword to guard this gate, but, on the contrary, the Lord Jesus Himself opens and no man shuts.

      Do you fear that sin has barred the gate of grace shut?  Your desponding feelings fasten up the door in your judgment.  Yet, it is not so.  The gate is not barred or bolted as you think it is.  Though it may be spoken of as closed in a certain sense, yet in another sense it is never shut.  In any case it opens very freely; its hinges are not rusted, no bolts secure it.  The Lord is glad to open the gate to every knocking soul.  It is closed far more in your apprehension than as a matter of fact.  Have faith and enter at this moment through holy courage.

      And if we plead with God for a while without realized success,  it makes us more earnest.  David pictured himself as sinking in the miry clay, lower and lower, till he cried out of the depths, and then at last he was taken up out of the horrible pit, and his feet were set on a rock.  So, our hearts need enlarging.  The spade of agony is digging trenches to hold the water of life.  If the ships of prayer do not come home speedily, it is because they are more heavily freighted with blessing.  If you knock with a heavy heart, you shall yet sing with joy of spirit.  Never be discouraged!

      Lord Jesus, You alone can open the door that I am knocking on.  Come to me, I pray.  Amen.

Yours & His,

DED