Luke 11:13 – “…being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
In this scripture, Jesus teaches how to pray when asked by His disciples. Every word of each line mentioned in the prayer Jesus taught has its relevance. Jesus compares our prayer requests to God to that of asking a friend, especially in the area of our basic need – food. If we don’t have enough and go ask a friend in time of need at an odd hour, that friend won’t wake up and help you because of your friendship. He will get up and give you as much as you need only because of “your shameless audacity” of persisting to ask.
Jesus teaches us, in the same persistence, to ask God based on His will to receive what we want, to seek God first to have everything else in our lives follow, and to knock on God’s door to receive Salvation. In all of this, we initiate the action of going to God in our faith to ask, to seek, and to knock and do this persistently, which means to keep our faith through this than to keep asking. Jesus compares us asking our earthly fathers for something, with asking our Heavenly Father – if we ask our earthly father, he will do the best he can, than to give us for example, a snake when asked for fish. A good father will not give His children food that is deadly, nor unfit as food. Then, how much more does our Father in Heaven care for us to expectantly wait for us to ask for His Holy Spirit. He is more than willing to send forth His Holy Spirit when asked. This is His promise to us by Jesus so we should never doubt God’s desire to pour out His Spirit. The problem is never in God’s giving but in our receiving of it.
Christ encourages us to be fervent and constant in our prayers. God may not answer our prayers quickly but He will in due time if we continue to pray. Watch what you pray for; we ought to ask for the Holy Spirit, as a necessity to pray well. Also, all spiritual blessings are included in that request. We get to know God through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. We also get to know ourselves, to repent, and to believe in, and love Christ by the Holy Spirit guidance. Our Heavenly Father is more keen to bestow all the blessings to anyone who asks for them, than an indulgent parent is to give food to a hungry child. Our request must be something” good” in the eyes of the Heavenly Father. How often many poor, selfish, short-sighted requests are made by us, which if God granted would be harmful rather than a blessing to us. Here the Lord, who reads our hearts, notices some of our deep and earnest longings that perhaps hardly makes it into our prayer; for example, if we want a special deepening of our spiritual life and pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Such a prayer, says Christ, will be granted. This is the advantage of our prayer of faith – it quiets and establishes our heart in God.
