Matthew 7: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Receiving is reserved for the one who asks. So ask, and it will be given to you. But first, you must learn to ask, and then you must know how to ask.
Let us start with the first part. Asking God for something, anything, seems so simple and straightforward at first glance. But it is not. When Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you,” He was talking to the people who had already decided to give their hearts to God. If you don’t have a personal relationship with God and you have not decided yet to give your heart to Him, you are not asking Him for anything because you don’t have access to Him. Always remember that God does not need us, He wants us, and that is unconditional love! Need is toxic and broken.
If you want to ask God for something, you first need to decide, with all your being, to give Him your heart. That is the only thing He asks of us. When you give Him your heart, He will fill it, all the way up, with His love and clean it. You will be a different person, feel alive, really alive, for the first time, and that big hole you keep trying to fill with all the wrong and destructive things will disappear magically.
Now you are where you need to be. When you are in this position, anything you ask for, you request it from your heart and not from your rational mind. So you will start to want things but not need them. And when you want something but do not need it, it is the moment you truly believe in God and leave space for Him in everything you ask for.
Let me give you an example.
You decide to give your heart to God and maintain a healthy, respectful, and beautiful relationship with Him. You want a new house. From this position, you will ask: My Lord, my Father, my God, I would like a new home, but only if You think it’s right for me at this point in my life and if You move in with me. “Thy will be done, Father, not mine.” That is how you know you are asking from your heart. That is how you know you genuinely love and believe in Him. And also that is how you know you deserve it and that you won’t mess it up.
Now that we have learned that we may ask for anything and know how to ask, we must learn how to receive.
You may say, but Cristian, receiving is easy. No. It is not. Not with God. It is sure, but it takes work.
What do I mean by that? In the Garden of Eden, God asked Adam why he ate the apple. Adam responded, “The woman You made for me told me to eat the apple.” So Adam indirectly blamed God for making the woman. I don’t want to know what God felt in that moment when He was waiting on an apology and got an accusation.
God loves you and me more than that, so He will not give us the opportunity to accuse Him of nothing. He loves us so much that He is going to put us in the position to thank Him, on our knees, for giving us everything we ask for. How? By putting us thru a growth process.
The you that asks is not going to be the you that receives. You may ask God for anything and be sure you will get it. But also be sure that when you ask God for something, He will bring you to the school of life to make sure you appreciate what you receive and use all you acquire to bless others.
That is how you become the best version of yourself. That is real growth. That is how you leave something meaningful behind you when you live this life and this planet. That is how you become a good parent, a good child, a good colleague, a good spouse, and a good human being.
That is how you become part of the solution and not the problem. That is how you become extraordinary.
And that is why only a few people do it.
Matthew 7, 13 – 14:13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
If you don’t accept all this and you don’t do it, you may still ask, and you will receive. But you won’t ask God; you will ask the other guy. You will get it faster. The price will be your soul, and the “gift” will destroy you and everyone around you.
Matthew 6 24: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Now you know. God gave you freedom of choice. Choose wisely!
With love, yours truly, Cristian.