One of the most audacious statements Jesus made, in my opinion, while He walked the earth is found in Mt 7:7,8, Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you: For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. What a bold statement, vs. 8 especially declares that everyone who asks, seeks or knocks will get their due, sorry, what does everyone mean? It means exactly that, everyone with the exception of no one, interesting, but wait a minute, I have heard a lot of followers of Christ complain of unanswered prayers, I have had times in my life as well when I felt I didn’t get answers to my asking, seeking and knocking, what's wrong here, we know God is not a man that he should lie, so what is the missing link here, this issue has gotten me a little puzzled down the years until the Holy Spirit spoke a word in to my hear and I have been meditating on it ever since, and this article is borne out of the discoveries I made in the place of praying in the Spirit and meditation.

The Holy Spirit said to me very clearly, “what you humans call answered prayers is nothing more than just confirming of the word”, I hadn’t thought about that at all before this time, He said “God never does anything without speaking it forth first, and He never does anything outside of His written word”, He showed me a few passage of the scripture in John where Jesus was telling his disciples about the relationship between Him and His father, Jn 14: 10, Beleivest thou not that I am in the father and the father in me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the father that dwelleth in me He doeth the work. Wait a second, Christ started with the word and ended it with work, in other words, without the word of God there will be no work of God, what we call signs and wonders if basically Gods word at work in our world, He took me back to the creation account in Genesis, what appeared on the earth was what God spoke forth, its so amazing how much of familiarity we have with Gods word and yet miss the most important issues in life, God never and I repeat never brings anything to pass without first haven spoken it ahead of time, even before His son came into the world, He had spoken at various times through His prophets about a coming Messiah who would take away the sin of the whole world, if Christ couldn’t come unless there was first a speaking, why then do we expect and pray for a miracle without first getting a word to back it up, that’s more like a farmer expecting a harvest without planting a seed, wouldn’t say he was stupid? So I guess it makes sense then to say, why don’t I find out what God has spoken over my life and what I need to do to walk in this spoken word before I start praying, if we embrace this attitude so much of the time we spend binding and loosing, bombarding the gates of heaven and hell with all manner of prayers will not be necessary.

John 15:7 also makes the same point, If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you, its not about whether or not God just chooses the prayers to answer like people making picks in a lottery dip, that’s the concept most Christians have and they just give up and say well, may be it wasn’t meant to be, why don’t you look at it this way, may be its time you let His word abide in you more and not what the newspapers or television have to say. He goes on in Jn 15:11 to says, These things have I spoken to you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy may be full. He’s saying nothing gives me more joy than for you to get answers to your prayers, and for your needs to be met, ten times out of ten, I rejoice when it happens and I want to see you rejoice as well, heavens joy knows no bounds when we receive the answers we desire.

Finding out His counsel is nothing more than figuring out what He has said, and then using that as a foundation for whatever we want to ask, even He himself said, According to the word of my mouth challenge ye me, 1 Jn 14, 15 says, And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of Him. What an insight, it says we have enough spiritual sense to find out what His will for us is, so we don’t just mumble words that make no meaning in His ears, hence we are full of confidence to the point where we don’t think about it any more, no doubting feeling comes upon us, we know it’s a done deal, what this means in essence is that as far as we are concerned Mt 7:8 is the reality of our lives, whenever we ask we receive, whenever we seek we find, whenever we knock we get opened doors, tremendous.

How then do we get to know His will for our lives, I wont go in depth into that because I already have an article that covers this topic in depth but one way to discover His specific will for you is to first find out what His general will is, and that’s what He gave us the bible for, to show us a picture of who we are in Him and the rights we have as citizens of His kingdom, if you are faithful to live your life the way the scriptures prescribe, you can be rest assured that He will show you His specific will for your life, I heard someone say once, “Don’t expect to get a rhema (specific spoken word) if you haven’t even obeyed the logos (written word)”, very true.

Everything that’s ours by right has been provided by grace and we have to understand that we didn’t do anything to deserve this things, that’s why its called grace anyway, its independent of us and any form of performance on our part, so when we find out what His will is all we need do is to believe for it the same way we believed for our salvation, it’s the same principles that apply, Eph 2:8 says, For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God. You can substitute the word saved with anything you want in the kingdom, blessings, healing, provision, whatever it is, you have it by grace and its only faith that’s needed from you to deliver it to you, if you walk with God with these truths in mind, you will be on your way to fulfilling the proclamation of Christ in Mt 7:8, God bless you