Day 4        September 4, 2013

Asking to Give – pray to give and to receive

     Excuse me, I’m going off in a different direction. As I write I’m on holiday so you’ll forgive me.

     “Here Christ represents the petitioner as asking that he may give again.”

     The man in need has a problem. He has either already eaten or is more concerned that his guest eats than that he eats. He is asking to give to somebody else.    

     There is a source to the story. Think back a while to the prayer that Jesus has demonstrated to his disciples. He has used the words, ^“Give us today our daily bread.”

     It may well be that we should be getting the link here behind our own prayers and our own desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Why are we asking to be filled, why could we be so importunate? Why should we ask day after day?

     The answer is that we should ask to give to others. I love the words that Dennis Smith uses in his book, ‘God’s health principles for His Last-Day people’ when he quotes Ellen White,

     “If you will go to work as Christ designs that His disciples shall, and win souls for Him, you will feel the need of a deeper experience and a greater knowledge in divine things, and will hunger and thirst after righteousness. You will plead with God, and your faith will be strengthened, and your soul will drink deeper drafts at the well of salvation. Encountering opposition and trials will drive you to the Bible and prayer. You will grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, and will develop a rich experience.”

     As we pray and as we ask so that others receive we are also beneficiaries. Take that back to the disciple’s original request. They want to look like Jesus, they want to feel like Jesus. They want His experience for their lives.

     What has Jesus given to the disciples? A simple prayer and then an illustration in the form of a parable. Pray with diligence and perhaps importunity. Make sure that you pray for others needs and serve others – and then you will experience what I experience, you will look like me.

     Take that to your prayer partner, find an opportunity today to pray for someone else’s need, serve that need and then take the time to say, “Thank you Lord” for the experience you will have.