Jesus introduced this promise with a phrase that underlined its reliability and gave His personal guarantee. Everyone who asks of God will receive from Him, not just the persistent (cf. Matt. 7:7-8). In the context everyone is every one of His children (v. 13). Jesus urged His disciples to pray. He probably meant that we must ask to receive (cf. James 4:2). Those who seek God's attention and response in prayer will find it (cf. Jer. 29:12-13). Those who knock on the closed door of God's heavenly house will find that He will open to them and give them what is best (cf. v. 7). Verse 10 gives the justification for the promise in verse 9. It sets forth the absolute certainty of what Jesus just said. God will definitely respond to the prayers of His children. A stronger promise is difficult to imagine.
The response of many Christians to this promise is: I asked but did not receive. I sought God but did not feel I got through to Him. I knocked at His door, but He did not admit me. However the unusual strength with which Jesus gave this promise should encourage us to believe Him in spite of appearances. We may not have received yet. We may not feel that we got through to God, but Jesus said we did. We may feel that we are knocking on heavens of brass, but Jesus promised that God entertained our prayer.
11:11-12 These two examples further enforce the point that God will respond to our prayers, and they stress that He will do so kindly (cf. Matt. 7:9-10). Since God is our heavenly Father, He will do no less than a normal earthly father would do. Even a good earthly father would not give his son who asked for a fish or an egg a snake or a scorpion. When curled up, large Palestinian scorpions can resemble eggs. Such a response would be cruel rather than loving since the substitution would involve no real giving but deception and even danger.
11:13 Jesus drew His climactic conclusion (cf. Matt. 7:11). Since God is perfect He will do much more than a sinful father would do. When Jesus gave this teaching the Holy Spirit did not yet indwell every believer (Acts 2:33; cf. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). The greatest blessing God could give a believer then was the possession of His Spirit. Thus the gift of the Holy Spirit was God's greatest possible gift for the disciples who first heard this teaching. In effect Jesus was saying that the heavenly Father would give the best gifts to those who ask Him. Believers today do not need to ask God to give them the Holy Spirit because He does this when we trust in His Son (Rom. 8:9).
The fact that God gives only good gifts to His children explains why He does not give us everything we request, even things that look good to us. Thus we need to understand Jesus' promise that God will give us what we ask (vv. 9-10) as referring only to things that are good for us.
In this important teaching on prayer Jesus gave His disciples a distinctive prayer to pray that expressed appropriate concerns for them because of their unique relationship to God. Then He showed how eager and ready God was to answer their prayers. Finally He promised that God would definitely respond to their prayers but only by giving them truly good gifts. Throughout He stressed the character of God and the disciple's privileged relationship to Him.288
