Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:7–12, KJV).
We are Blessed
When we take part in giving, it is only conditionally most of the time—we give to what we believe in or what will eventually benefit us. But, Jesus had a different concept of giving. He instructed us in Matthew 10:8 to freely give because we have freely received. We need to remember that anything we have in life has been given to us by God. The very air we breathe that provides life unto us has been freely given by God!
God wants to bless His people—He is not out to rob us of any blessing. Even when we face challenges in life, God is going to give us strength to endure (Psalms 29:11–12). He will always fight for us and bless us!
In our key setting of Scripture (Matthew 7:7–12), Jesus explained that if we ask, we will receive; seek, and we will find; knock, and a door will be opened. We need to trust that when we ask, God will pour out the right blessing for us, at the right time! He will always open the right door to us.
There are times that the world will want to take away our blessings, and the devil will want to corrupt what God has placed in our life. But, we learn from Scripture, in the story of Balaam, that no one can curse what God has blessed (Numbers 23:8)!
Being a Blessing to Others
If we want God to pour blessings into our lives, God expects us to do to others what we want Him to do to us. Jesus focused on this point in Matthew 7:12 when He said, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (KJV). Jesus used the word “therefore” to join two ideas together—the concept of asking and receiving, but then the importance of giving to others. We should be what we are looking for. If we want an amazing blessing from God, we need to be a blessing to others. We need to start doing the right things to get the right results.
Two Reasons We Don’t Act Right
Excuses & Reasons
We know that we should do the right things and to bestow blessings on others, but we have too many excuses/reasons as to why we shouldn’t, or why we can’t at the opportune moment. We can read an example about excuses in Luke 14:16–24. A man made a great supper and invited guests, but everyone had an excuse why they couldn’t attend. It was at the end, the master instructed his servant to bring in the poor, maimed, halt, and blind (Luke 14:21). When we aren’t willing to be a blessing to others, God will find someone else to bless who is without excuse!
Comparison
We fail to be a blessing to others and to do the right thing because we start to compare ourselves to what others in the body of Christ are doing. Paul warned us not to do this because it isn’t wise (II Corinthians 10:12). Fair is not a word that exists in God’s vocabulary! We should not have a spirit of entitlement or think that what God does isn’t perfect and true. What God does will always be right, even if it doesn’t feel “fair” to us. Jesus was speaking to Peter, and Peter started to compare himself to another person. Jesus asked Peter, “…what is that to thee?” (John 21:22, KJV)—basically asking, “Why does it matter?” We need to keep our eyes on the Word of God and use that as the only comparison in our life. If Jesus blessed others, and we are striving to be Christ-like, we need to bless others as well.
Enabling Ourselves to Give
We cannot give to others what we do not have in our own life. If we’ve come to a place where we’ve realized that we cannot give, we need to adopt a Kingdom mindset and attitude in our life so that we can freely give to others. God will always give us the ability to abide by His Word—and He will give us the ability to give the gifts to others that we want in our own life. We can be what God wants us to be! Jesus said to, “…believe on [Him], as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38, KJV). When we give what we are able, God will pour into us such a blessing that we will have even more flowing out of us to give to others!