Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened Matthew 7:7-8

Intro: Before we explore what God has for us in these verses,

We need to address a misconception about what Jesus is promising
- reading these verses closely, something piqued my curiosity
• in verse 7 Jesus encourages us to ask, seek, and knock
• then verse 8 is a virtual repetition of verse 7, only it’s more like a guarantee
◦ is is as though Jesus is saying, “Do this! You’ll see that it works”
- then–as if that were not enough–Jesus adds an illustration
• we'll come to that in a moment, but the point is we can count on God’s favorable response
• why does Jesus make this effort to convince us to go to the Father to ask, seek, and knock?