Why Ask?

Matthew 6:7 "But when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

8. "Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

Here Jesus was teaching on the subject of prayer. This was His lead in to the Lords prayer.

Before He taught us what to pray He also told us how not to pray. We are told not to pray repetitively. He said they think they will be heard for their many words, or volume of words. He said do not be like them. However we see that many Christians do this very thing by praying the same thing over and over thinking that they will be heard because of their repetition. Let’s take heed to the words of Christ and realize this is not how we should pray.

The question I want to ask is why would we need to ask if our Father already knows the things we need? He knows all things. He knows the beginning from the end. Why ask?

Many Christians say that God will take care of things, but I truly don’t know where

they get that idea or what Scripture they base that on. The word of God has much to say about asking God in faith.

I also know that many Christians don’t know that God has asked us to ask Him, and that He has given us instruction on how to ask, or what to ask.

The Apostle James said we do not have because we do not ask.

James 4:2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

Throughout the Word of God we see instances where we are told to ask. We have to ask in order to receive. Have you ever stopped to consider that there are spiritual reasons for this?

There are reasons for everything in God’s Word. He has set things up His way. It is not a case where God can not do something but a case where He established things in a certain way, and He will not violate His Word for anyone. It is up to us to get understanding into His Word and learn to walk in it.

We may not totally understand the why and why nots, but whether we have understanding or not, the reasons are still there and we must follow God’s ways in orders to get God’s results. Lets look to God’s Word for answers.

Genesis 1:26. Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’’

27. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

In the beginning God gave Adam dominion over the Earth. Adam sinned and because of this relinquished that authority. He no longer had that authority that God gave him. Satan became the God of this world.

Adam had the legal right to do what he did. Because he had the legal right God could not just step in and undo the mess that Adam created. Adams dominion and authority was given to him by God Himself. Adam then turned that legal God given authority over to Satan. Satan had legally become the God of this world.

At this point man was lost. He lost His relationship as a child of God, he lost his fellowship with God and he lost the authority that had been bestowed upon him. All seemed hopeless.

We have to understand that God does not break His Word for anybody. He would not step across that line and undo what had happened. Legally he could not do that. He had to find a legal way.

Through a Covenant with Abraham God got his seed back into the Earth, and established an everlasting Covenant with that seed. Everything we have and are is by and through that seed. I’ve said all of this to make the point that we have to follow the outline of this Covenant to legally receive the promises of God. Part of legally receiving is to ask.

I think it would be beneficial to describe what a covenant is so that the importance of this will be understood. A covenant is a legal binding agreement between two parties. Both parties must agree to the terms of the covenant before they enter into it. Both parties will agree to uphold and fulfill their end of the covenant according to the conditions stipulated within the terms of that covenant. Most covenants will have several parts to it. There is the physical act of cutting the covenant, and the actual outline of the covenant itself, or the legal binding agreement that both parties have already agreed to. Within the framework of this there will be blessings for keeping the covenant and curses that will happen if either party were to break the covenant. The curse would often be death along with the death of all of their immediate family. So you can readily see that entering into such an agreement was not something done lightly. It was a most serious thing to do.