Dec 11 - Matthew 7:8

Jesus said,

For everyone who asks receives,

and everyone who searches finds,

and for everyone who knocks,

the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:8

God is not your personal genie. "Everyone who asks receives" is not a call to go make a Christmas wish list that God must fulfill.

And yet ... God is generous!

Let's look at the other two verbs -- "knock" and "seek" -- before going back to "ask."

There's a famous picture of Jesus knocking on a door. In the painting clear that the handle is on the inside. As Jesus says in Revelation 3:20, he joyfully takes the initiative -- "behold I stand at the door and knock." But the handle is on our side of the door and we must still respond if we want Jesus' in our lives -- "if anyone opens the door, I will come into them."

Does Matthew 7 reverse this image? Yes, Jesus tells us to knock. But Jesus has still taken the initiative. He came from heaven to earth -- his initiative. And the door is still our barrier between us and God. He's here. We must respond.

And so this passage -- "for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" -- effectively means: "for everyone who responds to God's presence on their threshold (door), the barriers will fall and God will come in!"

Isn't that what it means when Jesus says, "everyone who seeks finds"? The door / the barrier is ours. God is standing right there. He wants to be found. But the barriers are our pride, our anger, our guilt, our grief. What stands between us and finding God is our pseudo-intellectualism, our selfishness, and our carnal desires. When we seek beyond the world's ways and our own hurts and wants, we finally find the God who's been standing there all along.

Be clear, it's his initiative. The great God of heaven is not obligated to do anything with little me or you! He comes. He calls. He beckons. He stirs our hearts even while we're broken and rebellious. It's his gracious initiative. All we have to do is respond by pushing past ourselves -- our lostness and selfishness.

And so we circle back to "for whoever asks receives." In this context, can you now conceive of this being about anything so petty and temporary as material possessions that the great genie in the sky is obligated to give us if we ask?

God is generous.

But mainly, he is generous with himself! And when "we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" -- Jesus' words from eight verses earlier -- then we truly gain everything! And this includes a perspective on what on this earth really matters. And that's what truly makes us rich!

In Christ's Love,

a guy who knocked for a while

(knocked his head, seeking

the wrong things) until life

-- and humbling --

knocked some sense into me;

then I knocked on the right door

and my barriers came tumbling down