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When we talk with God, Jesus the Messiah challenges us to be direct. God already knows what we need. God loves us. God cares for us. God will give us what we need.

One of the more important things that Jesus knows we need is the Holy Spirit. We need the power to have faith and be courageous. How often do I ask for the Holy Spirit in my prayers? Not enough I am afraid.

God is in a good mood. May we be direct and ask for what we need. That will involve the courage we get from the Holy Spirit.

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Luke 11:10-13

The tenses of the verbs are important here: “Keep on asking … keep on seeking … keep on knocking.” In other words, don’t come to God only in the midnight emergencies, but keep in constant communion with your Father. Jesus called this “abiding” (John 15:1ff), and Paul exhorted,

Pray without ceasing

(1 Thes. 5:17)

As we pray, God will either answer or show us why He cannot answer. Then it is up to us to do whatever is necessary in our lives so that the Father can trust us with the answer.[2]

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The father-son relationship about which Jesus speaks harks back to his teaching the disciples to address God in prayer with “Father”. Fish and eggs are nutritious, snakes and scorpions poisonous. Jesus’ point is that as the disciples’ Father, God will give them things good for them, not harmful to them, in answer to their prayers for such things. Jesus pairs a fish and a snake because both are long and scaly and pairs an egg and a scorpion because when curled up a scorpion looks something like an egg. Despite many English translations to the contrary, there’s no “if” in Luke’s text, as in “if your son asks” and “if he asks.” What we have instead is affirmations (“the son will ask … he will ask”), so that Jesus makes asking in prayer a characteristic of discipleship. There’s no discipleship without prayer.[3]

11:13: “If then you, though you’re evil, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father from heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who keep asking him [for the Holy Spirit]!” Not “know how to give good gifts,” as though it were a matter of method, but “know to give good gifts,” since it is a matter of course—and this despite the depravity of all human fathers.

Because God the Father is good rather than evil, he is even more likely than human fathers to give good gifts. Indeed, he will give them, most especially the gift of the Holy Spirit, to those who keep asking him. He is called “the Father from heaven” because he will come on the disciples from heaven in the person of his Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2), and they’ll have been praying (Acts 1:14).[4]

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 11:10–13.

[2] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 215.

[3] Robert H. Gundry, Commentary on the New Testament: Verse-by-Verse Explanations with a Literal Translation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), 280.

[4] Robert H. Gundry, Commentary on the New Testament: Verse-by-Verse Explanations with a Literal Translation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), 280.

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