Holy Spirit 04

Holy Spirit 04
Luke 11:9-13

Today's devotion is number four in our Holy Spirit devotions, and we are headed to Luke Chapter 11, verses 9-13. So, grab your Bible if you can. (I use the NLT.) Get your notebook or journal, and something to write with. I encourage you to please take this opportunity to really focus on God's Word, and to really, truly interact with God on this devotion.

These are small, bite-sized devotions to prayerfully help inspire you to know the Holy Spirit better, to seek the Holy Spirit more, and to sense the Holy Spirit more in your life. If you'd like to go deeper in knowing and seeking the Holy Spirit, I'll give you some ways that you can do that at the end of the devotion.

So, this is our fourth devotion from our Scripture By Topic list on the Holy Spirit. And you can get that entire scripture list on the Holy Spirit, along with instructions for our Daily Devotion Journal at MyDailyChurch.com.

Our scripture is Luke 11, verses 9-13, and let's just pray that the Lord would make our hearts ready to hear from him today.

Heavenly Father, please, pour out your Spirit, Lord. Poor pour out your Spirit upon us, Lord, that our eyes would be open, that our hearts would be open, that we would hear you speak, and that we would desire more and more the evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We thank you for it. In your name, Jesus, amen.

So, in our last devotion on the Holy Spirit, I asked a couple of questions. Number one, I asked, How do we increase our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit? And then I also asked, How do we increase our ability to be led by the Holy Spirit? And I said that we've got to continually be asking to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit as Ephesians 5:18 says. And that continual asking, and seeking, and knocking is what I want to look at in God's Word, today.

So, Luke Chapter 11 begins with the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray. And this is Luke's recording of what's often called the “Lord's Prayer.” But then, in verse 5 of Luke Chapter 11, Jesus digs deeper into the subject of prayer by telling the disciples a parable. It’s a parable about you going to a friend's house late at night in need of bread, in the parable. But your friend is in bed and doesn't necessarily want to get up. But in verse 8 of Luke 11, your friend does get up and he gives you what you need because of your persistence. And that's the key to the parable. The parable is about you and I persistently asking for what we need.

And so, we begin today with Luke 11:9. 9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking (In the original language, it means to ask and to continually be asking), and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking (And again, in the original, it's seek, be seeking and continue to be seeking), and you will find. Keep on knocking (Again, in the original, knock, continually be knocking, always be knocking), and the door will be opened to you.

Guys, very often in the Bible, when God wants to really get something across, he repeats it three times. And what God is trying to get across here is continual, persistent asking. This is about persistently, continually, asking, and seeking God for what you need.

And then, Luke 11:10 confirms the reward for this persevering in our continual seeking of God. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Guys, the key here is that God wants us to be continually asking, and seeking, and knocking. Not because he wants to make things hard for us, but because our greatest need is to learn to walk in continual dependence on God.

And then the goodness of God is revealed in the final verses, in 11-13. So first, Luke 11:11-12. They compare earthly fathers to our Heavenly Father. In verse 11, Jesus says, 11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not!

And then, for the big close of this teaching, after drawing us into a continually dependent relationship with God, and after assuring us that God will answer this intense level of prayer, and then setting up this comparison between an earthly father and our Heavenly Father, finally, in verse 13, God makes it clear that if we will be persistent, if we will persevere in our asking, and are seeking, then our Heavenly Father will surely give us the best of all gifts.

Here it is. Luke 11:13 says, 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” That's it right there. The Holy Spirit is the supreme gift that God the Father gives to every believer through the work of the Son Jesus. Through Jesus Christ’s work, God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to always abide in our hearts, to always live inside of us. And our Heavenly Father will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. He will pour out the Holy Spirit upon us, Acts 1:8 says, for power in our lives, as we continually depend on God, and as we continually ask, and seek, and knock on the door of the throne room of Heaven, for God to give us this very best of all gifts. The very best gift that a child of God could receive from the Father, is the gift of the Person of the Holy Spirit, and all that goes with him – the peace, and the power, and the gifting, and the guidance, and the direction.

Guys, sometimes we come to God in prayer, a bit shallow, right? A bit superficial. But when we get serious, when we are committed to pouring out our heart to God, earnestly and continually seeking him for his best for us, with no letting up, when we learn to seek God at that level, it is for our good. When we learn to storm the throne room of Heaven with unrelenting, sincere supplication, it is for our good that we learn to do that. When we learn to intensely cry out to God until we know that we've come into his presence, until we know that he is responding to us, all of this is for our good.

Because as we persistently ask, and seek, and knock, it enables God to search our hearts. And it enables God to reveal our hearts to ourselves – to us – and to reveal our motives to us. And we continue to do that until we get to where we will be praying God's will and God's best for us. And if we seek God in this way, for a continual outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives, he has promised us that we will receive what we ask for.

So, let's do some of that right now. Let's pray through these verses, and then I'm going to give you a minute, sixty seconds, to cry out to God for the greatest and best gift that he could give us as his children – the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit.

I’m going to pray through the verses. And if you can, follow me through the verses so you can see I'm just praying the verses, and then I'm going to give you sixty seconds to cry out to God on your own, for him to pour out the Holy Spirit on you.

Luke 11:9-13 (NLT)
9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?
12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not!
13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”


Lord, you tell us, keep on asking. Always be asking and we will receive what we ask for. Lord Jesus, you tell us, keep on seeking. Always be seeking and we will find. And Lord, you tell us, keep on knocking. Always be knocking. Always, always, always be coming to you. And the door will be open to us. Lord, you promise us that everyone who asks in this way receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks with this persistent perseverance, the door will be opened.

And Lord, we as fathers, if our children ask us for a fish, we won't give them a snake instead. And if they ask us for an egg, we won't give them a scorpion instead. And so, Lord, if we being sinful, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will you, our Heavenly Father, give the greatest and the best gift of all to us, the Holy Spirit? How much more Father will you give us? How much do you want? You desire to give us the Holy Spirit for just asking, for crying out, for asking, and seeking, and knocking, and learning to be dependent on you. And always coming to you to pour out your Holy Spirit on us.


All right, now, listen, while you're still praying, just cry out to God.

“God, fill me with your Spirit, Lord. Pour your Holy Spirit upon me. God, give me a desire to seek, to be sensitive to your Holy Spirit, to be led by your Holy Spirit. Baptize me in your Holy Spirit.”

Take a minute, right now. Take an actual sixty seconds to cry out to God. Look back over the verses, and cry out to God for the greatest and the best gift he could give us as his children, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now, let's finish our prayer together, today.

Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for saving us. And thank you for pouring out your Spirit upon us. Lord, may we learn to continually depend on your Holy Spirit, Lord, for the power, and the peace, and leading, and guiding, and direction, and the gifts that we need so badly. Lord, we cry out to you to be continually filled with your Holy Spirit. In your mighty name, Jesus, and for your glory, amen.

All right, before we go, I mentioned I’d give you a way to dig into knowing the Holy Spirit better. And so, if you'd like to hear full messages on these verses or on the Holy Spirit, just go to MyDailyChurch.com, click on the “Teaching” tab, and in the Library, is the category for "Holy Spirit Singles and Series".  And you'll get, now, 28 messages on the Holy Spirit, each with a little different focus. So, you can look through those, and take your pick.

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