javier Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? These are essential because Jesus is telling us to be bold and persistent when it comes to advancing the Kingdom.There is nothing passive about the Kingdom, if one is to help to advance it one has to be aggresive and radical about the Kingdom. Communication is two way and the only way the Kingdom can advance in a person's life is if they are persistent enough to keep asking, seeking, and knocking..... Why do we give up so easily? We give up easily because we get tired of asking, complacent in the situation that were in and we give up seeking, discouraged when the door is not open. And we give up when we don't fully understand what it is that God wants to do in and through our lives,we lose faith. How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? "Christ". No man can come to the Father without Christ.It's because of Christ we can come before the throne of grace with confidence. It's all Christ!It's all because of Christ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexandria Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Continual asking, seeking, and knocking is so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom because it shows that we believe God and his Kingdom does exist and it shows that we want to have a closer relationship with God. When we persist, it shows that we believe that God is the only true way to receive that which we believe we need and by doing so it reveals to us the Kingdom of God and the awesomeness of that Kingdom. We sometimes give up too easily because, being only human, if it does not happen right away we begin to think that God is not listening, or that he just is not answering us. We lack the faith to keep believing that even though we haven't yet received what we asked for, we then assume he is not going to answer and we are not going to get what we asked for. We can only gain boldness and persistence in prayer by believing, without doubt, that we will receive what we are asking for as long as it is for our good or the good of others. When we have a strong enough faith to believe that anything is possible when it comes to God, boldness and persistence are just naturally a part of that faith. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenny Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 this is the result of a double posting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenny Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? In order to grow and get to become more like Christ we need to keep in constant contact with Him and it is through continual asking,seeking and knocking that our Lord hears our pleas and He keeps His promise.I think that we often expect instant responses to all our pleas,and when things don't work as we expect we throw in the towel. Back in 79, I had just started a new job and the boss was always cussing and it was often blasphemous. Anyway a colleague would pray for him openly everyday straight after saying grace,which by the way he did out loud at the canteen table.The boss overheard this from time to time and would make some blasphemous remark,this went on for years.I asked the guy why he didn't stop praying for him and he said that the Lord had laid it on his heart to pray for him so he would continue until told to stop. I left the company after nine years and bumped into my ex colleague a year later and asked if he still prayed for the boss, he said that he had also left just after me and had only recently stopped praying for him but had not seen him again.I bumped into that old boss a few months later to hear that he had given his life to the Lord. The fruits of persistent prayer Amen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanMary Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? I believe He's hard wired us in such a way that we are always seeking "more".....of whatever. His desire is for us to seek and look forward to His priorities, which is relationship and living in His Kingdom and Promises. The world tugs at us to seek more of what it offers. We are told to resist the fleshly desires and pursue the Spiritual realm He longs for us to live in. Why do we give up so easily? We have an enemy who is always at work to hinder us in our pursuit of God. He is quick to discourage or intimidate us. We are comfort seekers.....and "asking, seeking, knocking" is work and requires perseverance, which is one of His qualities (fruit of the Spirit). Pursuing Him, develops perseverance in His children. How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? First of all, understanding and knowing the Scriptures, and that we are commanded to come boldly. We are commanded to persist in prayer. We simply keep on obeying what He tells us, when we're weary, when the enemy hounds us, when it gets hard and we don't yet see results...we keep on as He's commanded, and we will be rewarded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trusting God Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Continual asking, seeking, and knocking is essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom, because when we believe God Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Posted October 14, 2010 Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Asking, seeking and knocking is essential because it was not only taught by Jesus but modeled by Him as well. Think of the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus petitioned God three times. Jesus often separated Himself from the others to pray. We give up so easily because we are so conditioned in this culture to immediate gratification, not to mention our recognition of an answered prayer may be biased by what we expect the answer to be. We gain boldness and persistence by believing that God loves us and that He really desires fellowship in prayer with us. As we persist boldness increases as our trust for God increases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalume Posted October 14, 2010 Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? We are to come with a confident, bold, persistent asking, seeking, and knocking . God our Father desires to hear our petitions and we are to be entirely open with him. Prayer is not a time to hide what is going on inside us, but to share it openly -- warts and all -- with our Father who, as we know, loves us and understands us and seeks good for us. We can trust him, even though we might misunderstand an issue, or ask for the wrong thing. We give up so easily because there is lake of patience,trust and confidence to our God. We gain boldness and persistence in prayer wen we got knowledge of God in us.Trust,confidence and personal relationship with God. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoiKosum Posted October 14, 2010 Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? We must be persistent in seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Very often, we let our fleshly desires distract us from this task. Our human instinct is to be independent and do or solve things on our own. God is always our last resort. However, Matthew 6 verse 3 says that we must seek FIRST... We give up easily because we do not see the results we want in the time we want it. We want everything done according to our agenda and schedule. However, we must recognise and accept that God knows what is best for us and God's timing is perfect, God is never early or late. We gain boldness and persistence in prayer when we pray often i.e. commune with God. By speaking (praying) to God, we are able to tap into the heart-beat of God. From this, we will be able to know God's heart and the nature and character of God. Without a heart knowledge of God's character, we will never be able to gain the necessary boldness in our prayer. We will then have the tendency to hold back because we are not sure how God will receive our petitions. If this were the case, then we will not be able to enjoy the full measure of God's love and blessing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WALT39 Posted October 14, 2010 Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Matthew 7:7-8 - 7"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; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? In order to grow in our faith, we must actively pursue it. If we just sit around and think we know everything, we will be complacent and that is when we allow Satan to creep in. By continually asking Jesus and knocking on His door, we will find what we are seeking in the arms of Jesus. Why do we give up so easily? When we do not get what we think are the right answers, then we believe that Jesus is not listening. What we want and what He wants can be different, so people just give up. How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? By communicating openly with Jesus through prayer. This is an area that I am continually working on. It is a discipline that I must maintain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marloes Posted October 14, 2010 Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? We must take action in order to enter the Kingdom. Ask, seek, knock. We want everything at the moment we think about it. We don't like waiting, and get easily impatient or discoraged. I guess we gain boldness and persistence by practicing a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sahala p.s. Posted October 15, 2010 Report Share Posted October 15, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Because doing them continually it shows that we seriously depend on him to meet our needs, that we seriously ask him for a thing, and that we seriously trust him Why do we give up so easily? Because we are lazy to pray, we do not have confidence that God will answer our prayer How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? We have to know rightly who we, those who believe in him, are before God, and who he is, and then we have to believe God will meet his promises Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janel Posted October 17, 2010 Report Share Posted October 17, 2010 Q3 God has given us a free will. Being a loving God, whatever action we do there is always a response from God. God never leave us orphan. He knows us before we were formed in our mother's womb. Everything comes from Him. Therefore, asking, seeking, and knocking is so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom. Due to our weaknesses, impatience, no confidence, etc., we tend to give up easily. In this fast world where everything is instant, we tend to take our God the same way not realizing that God will work everything beautiful for us in His time not our time, in His way and not our way. We expect a "Yes" always to our every request but sometimes God's "No" turns out better for He knows best after all He will give us our needs not our wants. We must always have the pressure to approach the throne of grace with confidence. We need to be in prayer daily with God and have a conversation with Him. When in prayer, we need to have faith, trust, belief and confident and trusting in His word all our needs will be attended to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haar Posted October 17, 2010 Report Share Posted October 17, 2010 God wants us to come boldly to him to ask, seek and to knock the dooor. We shall then recieve, find and have the door of the kingdom opened for us. The three stages of asking, seeking and knocking demonstrates our faith in him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith H Posted October 17, 2010 Report Share Posted October 17, 2010 Why do we give up so easily? Perhaps the answer is simply that we do not realise our dependance on God and while we believe that most of our desires are being met by the world around us, we loose some interest in frequent, fervent prayer. I have seen very often that people begin to pray more and with more earnestnes when they feel that they are in some kind of trouble - financial, personal relationships etc. Then, as circumstances start to change for the better and things settle down and the need dissapears, they return to a more casual approach. Anyone identify with that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammie7 Posted October 17, 2010 Report Share Posted October 17, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Asking,seeking,knocking is so essential to looking forward to the kingdom is because we have to have faith that everything we seek and asking our father for he will give to us but it will be on his time because his time is alway the right time. We give up because we want everything right then. we want everything like God is a mircowave we want it instance. We gain boldness and persistence by boldly ask our father and keep on asking not afraid but with boldness and believing in to want we are asking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nurselaino Posted October 18, 2010 Report Share Posted October 18, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Mat 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: Mat 7:8 for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. I believe it is important as it teaches us to be in constant communication with the Lord and to actively look for what the Lord wants for us in our lives. I give up because I lose the confidence that I had or begin to have doubts that God is listening to me or that I am worthy enough to Him to be bothered with. The more we communicate with the Lord, talk to Him, be upfront with Him ...in a word be ourselves with Him the easier it is to come to Him with all our questions and asks for answers. I also believe it is a good thing to keep track of our prayers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moses 4 Posted October 19, 2010 Report Share Posted October 19, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? We learn that prayer should be the expression of our whole person. We must be honest and authentic in acknowledging our faults. Yet personal anxiety is a hindrance to faith; therefore, everything must be submitted to God in prayer (Mt. 6:34). We are to ask, seek, and knock (Mt. 7:7-8), for a holy God is more likely to give than even the best of human fathers. Mere words will win us nothing -- to say we are Christian does not mean that we are. Only a conforming will and a contrite heart will be accepted (Mt. 7:21). We cannot compel God to grant us anything: all that we receive is received through unmerited and unconditional grace (Mt. 20:1-16). We must desire communion, that is, communication with the Lord. The business of our worldly tasks should not nor cannot distract us from this). We are to trust and have faith rather than seek proof (Mt. 16:1-4). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moses 4 Posted October 19, 2010 Report Share Posted October 19, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? We learn that prayer should be the expression of our whole person. We must be honest and authentic in acknowledging our faults. Yet personal anxiety is a hindrance to faith; therefore, everything must be submitted to God in prayer (Mt. 6:34). We are to ask, seek, and knock (Mt. 7:7-8), for a holy God is more likely to give than even the best of human fathers. Mere words will win us nothing -- to say we are Christian does not mean that we are. Only a conforming will and a contrite heart will be accepted (Mt. 7:21). We cannot compel God to grant us anything: all that we receive is received through unmerited and unconditional grace (Mt. 20:1-16). We must desire communion, that is, communication with the Lord. The business of our worldly tasks should not nor cannot distract us from this). We are to trust and have faith rather than seek proof (Mt. 16:1-4). Pax Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summertime7 Posted October 24, 2010 Report Share Posted October 24, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? For the most part, I believe the continual asking, seeking, and knocking is designed to create endurance in us, thus building faith and a closer relationship with the Father. Secondly, I believe the persistence of ASK is necessary as we do not know what spiritual blockages we have to break through, again this too builds endurance and persistence. We typically give up because we are not patient, and to some degree our lack of trust and faith is evident in our actions or lack thereof. One of the ways we gain boldness and persistence in prayer is by not giving up, and continually coming, trusting and believing that the Father will answer concerning the matter we are petitioning him for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smurf1948 Posted October 24, 2010 Report Share Posted October 24, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? To build that relationship with God. This will help us to be bold. Why do we give up so easily? We think we can do it on our own. How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? By keep going to the Lord over and over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda bass Posted October 26, 2010 Report Share Posted October 26, 2010 Continual asking,seeking,and knocking is essential to our looking forward to the kingdom because it is a constant,active request. We are to continue in prayer and not give up. We give up in prayer so easily because we become discouraged when God doesn't answer right away. We gain boldness and persistance in prayer by praying with confidence and by sharing openly our petitions with Our Lord. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen Posted October 29, 2010 Report Share Posted October 29, 2010 Q3. (Matthew 7:7-8) Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? Why do we give up so easily? How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Maybe it shows either the shallowness or depth of our faith, our willingness to spend our time with the God of the universe, to getting to know more of Him, to love Him, and to show how much we care about whatever our petition is. In the flesh we are easily discouraged and give up, feel defeated. We need to remain in the Spirit. By spending time in prayer, don't give up, don't give in, don't stop now! God Bless! Jen Numbers 6:24-26` Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wifee Posted October 30, 2010 Report Share Posted October 30, 2010 3a) Jesus commands us to ask, seek and knock not just once, but persistently in an ongoing way. E.g parable of the friend at midnight. Literally it can me as we discover, examine, investigate we will find. He wants us to not give up but keep our focus on Him. We may give up if we don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FORWARD FELEX Posted October 31, 2010 Report Share Posted October 31, 2010 We must 'seek the kingdom' continually; this should be our goal. The more we continue to ask, the more He answers us. The more we listen, the more we recognize His voice. We gain confidence in our prayers by listening to His whispers to our hearts and following what is right according to the Word. The more we engage ourselves in righteous living, the more confidence we have when coming to the throne. If we continue asking, seeking and knocking, we show our committment to God. God eventually hears our prayers and prepares us worthy of forgiveness. This enables us to share in the kingdom of heaven that Jesus our Lord prepared for us when He died for us on the cross and ascended to heaven. We in most cases give up so easily because it takes time to receive what we request for. We need to have faith, for faith is the assurance of Godly things we hope for and the conviction of the reality, though not yet seen. It took Abraham a long time to receive what God had promised him. We gain boldness after understanding the importance of being confident. Looking at circumstances and how God helped/helps His people, we also find it important to stay bold in doing God's will through bearing fruit and repentance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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