Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
–Matthew 7:7
Scripture reading: Hebrews 11:1-40
Many people do not receive the Holy Spirit because they are continually asking and never believing. “Everyone who asks receives” (Matt. 7:8). He who is asking is receiving; he who is seeking is finding. The door is being opened right now; that is God’s present Word. The Bible does not say, “Ask and you will not receive.” Believe that asking is receiving, seeking is finding, and to him who is knocking, the door is being opened.
When will we see people filled with the Holy Spirit and things done as they were in the Acts of the Apostles? It will be when people say, “Lord, You are God.” I want you to come into a place of such relationship with God that you will know your prayers are answered because He has promised.
Faith has its request. Faith claims it because it has it. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1). As sure as you have faith, God will give you the overflowing, and when He comes in, you will speak as the Spirit gives utterance (Acts 2:4).
You must come to a place of ashes, a place of helplessness, a place of wholehearted surrender where you do not refer to yourself. You have no justification of your own in regard to anything. You are prepared to be slandered, to be despised by everybody. But because of His personality in you, He reserves you for Himself because you are godly, and He sets you on high because you have known His name (Ps. 91:14). He causes you to be the fruit of His loins and to bring forth His glory so that you will no longer rest in yourself. Your confidence will be in God. Ah, it is lovely. “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).
Smith Wigglesworth