“And I say to you, ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. “For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened… “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Luke 11:9-10, 13 NAS
There is an interesting discrepancy between Mathew 7 and Luke 11. In Matthew 7 at the end of the so-called “Sermon on the Mount” Jesus counsels his hearers to ask and knock, and promises that if they do ask and knock they will receive what they ask for. This is an important statement because it admits that the experience of the Father’s kingdom on earth that Jesus has been describing is not anything that a human can enter into without some kind of assistance.
But the strange thing is that Jesus does not tell us in Matthew what to ask for. Yet in Luke 11 Jesus, using the very same words as in Matthew 7, specifies very clearly that we are to ask for the Holy Spirit.
What’s going on? Well, there are a couple of options. One is that in his sermon Jesus did say that we need to ask for the Holy Spirit and that Matthew either did not hear it, or for some reason, left it out. I think the other option is better. Here we have a master teacher who knows when his students are ready for something and when they are not, and how to raise questions in their minds which he will answer later. If we take seriously the positioning of the sermon in Matthew, then it was delivered fairly early in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus explained the relationship of his ministry to that of the Holy Spirit as he went along (see the “Last Supper Discourse” in John). So I think that it was later, as recorded in Luke, that the master Teacher finally answered their question, “Ask for what?” and Jesus replied, “No, ask for who.”
So that’s the question for you and me: “Love your enemies?” “Don’t worry?” How?! Ask and you shall receive! Have you asked?
Called To Be Transformed 