100 Days on Jesus’ Sermon Mount (Day 75)

Jesus said, “Ask for something and it will be given to you, search for something and you will find it, knock on a door and it will be opened to you.”

— Matthew 7:7 (USC)

Three levels of inquiry are hitherto mentioned; each with an increasing level of passion. We are prepared to ask for something, but not to search for it. Those things we are prepared to search for we are not quite as prepared to commit to knocking. Yet, when we knock at a door we’re tired of simply asking, and we have found searching has brought us to the point of no avail.

In life, we are always seeking something. We are never totally satisfied.

There is an answer we want, an acquisition to be found, and an opportunity to take up. Sometimes these represent the seasons of life; to discover the purpose in something; to take hold of something; to engage in something.

Life is ever a mystery — of one end or other — or it’s nothing at all.

We are either challenged or we are bored and never the twain shall meet — there is no challenge in boredom and no boredom in challenge. Yet both leave us dissatisfied. Until we take up the cusp of challenge, we won’t realise what we are missing out on. Until we refuse our sloth we won’t really know life. And when we do finally insist we go out and do those things we are putting off, then we will find that being challenged is life itself.

Jesus gives us a key to the abundant life in this passage.

If we will ask we will receive an answer. The opportunity is of asking. We must actually pose the question. That takes courage. It risks rejection. But until we ask we are hemmed into the same old corner and we can’t unpick ourselves.

If we will search for that thing we need to possess we will find it. The opportunity is enveloped in the searching. We need to actually start digging. We continue to languish in a pathetic despair if we don’t start the operation! Sure, we might find something unexpected, or we might be surprised how we obtain it, but we won’t know until we start.

If we will knock on the door that we feel compelled to knock on, that door will open to us. Again, it’s rejection that we may need to face, but until we knock we remain in a comfortable sort of incarceration. It’s not good for us.

***

It’s better to be answered negatively, to not find what we’re looking for, and to be passed over on the opportunity we wish for, than do nothing.

It’s better to know where we stand so we might stand in what we know.

Ask and we’re answered,

Search and what we look for is found,

Knock and our door is opened,

Each is the way to be unbound.

***

QUESTIONS in REVIEW:

1.     Fear is the pivot point for change. What are your fears that need to be challenged and overcome before the pivot point to change is reached?

2.     What opportunities are going begging? On the other hand, what opportunities for change do you wish were laid right before you?

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

Note: USC version is Under the Southern Cross, The New Testament in Australian English (2014). This translation was painstakingly developed by Dr Richard Moore, a NT Greek scholar, over nearly thirty years.