Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Matthew 7:7

This is part of the good news Jesus came to bring.  If we ask for it, He will bring it.  If we look for it, we will find it.  If we keep knocking at the door, eventually, it will open for us.  This is Kingdom 101 quite often, and, whether it is accepted as such or dismissed from there, it can often get little investigation later.  However, as with many of Jesus’ sayings, they apply to multiple levels.

For instance, take the phrase “Seek and you will find.”  This, of course, applies to the Kingdom of Heaven, to God the Father, and to Jesus.  This of course applies to answers and deliverances and other such burdens we offer towards heaven.  But, let’s look at this another way for a moment.

Jesus ministered on the Earth in the power of the Spirit.  The gifts were evident yet not on display.  The Spirit was present, and the gifts were promised, but the primary focus of the teaching was directed towards the Father’s will.

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

Matthew 7:21-23

Jesus said that the gate was small AND that the way was narrow that led to life (Matthew 7:14).

One thing that becomes apparent as one walks down the way of the prophetic gifting, the path of yoked service to the Lord.  What you seek, you will find.  This is, in fact, exactly what Jesus said.  However, what exactly you are seeking becomes vitally important in light of the ending of the Sermon on the Mount.

Suppose you are still seeking self-promotion and recognition.  You will find it.  Suppose you are seeking soulish comfort to fill a void and a need.  It becomes often quite difficult to discern what you are hearing when it comes to you own deep-seated pains and insecurities.  If you are seeking anything, eventually, what you are looking for will come out.

And, if it isn’t His Kingdom and His righteousness, it will come  out exactly as it is described in the previous two and and half chapters.  You wont be living the “Happy all the time” lifestyle of the Beatitudes, the life of faith.  You will begin to manifest anger, or other symptoms, sometimes almost out of no where.  You will begin to contend with every other wicked force in the universe.

 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

James 3:16

James puts it well.  When we do not do things God’s way, it may begin to seem like we are battling every devilish device ever known to man.  This is exactly what James wrote, “every evil thing”.

As it turns out, this is a simple little rule.  Jesus said, Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all the others will be added to you (Matthew 6:33).  He said that if we sought the honor that comes only from above, we would receive that, and that then He would reward us openly.

You see, you get what you set out to find.  Yet, it is not those who do the miracles, deliverances, and the signs and the wonders that are honorable in the Kingdom.  It is ONLY those who do the will of the Father.

Now, it is God’s will to deliver His people.  It is His will to heal the sick, cleanse the leper, raise the dead, and cast out demons.  But He has a way, a plan, a purpose, and timing.  He wants all the glory.

Paul writes plainly that we are to earnestly desire the greater gifts, especially that we might prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1).  The point is not so much to be afraid to exercise our gifts, but to remember what aim we are fighting for.  The Ephesian church in the book of Revelations had lost their first love (Revelation 2:4).  Though they increased in every good work, they lost their primary focus, their purity of devotion to Christ.

If we ever lose that, we stand in danger of losing our entire work.  The very next verse, Revelation 2:5, Jesus Himself says He is coming to remove their lampstand, their charter as His church, if they do not get back to the One Thing that matters.

If we are truly seeking His heart, we do not need to fear; we will be okay.  Why?  Because we are seeking Him, and we will find Him.  Any gift exercised in that heart is excusable when we step out of line and need to be corrected or disciplined by His Spirit, for our own good.  But, the purpose of the outward is to lead to the inward.  As touch is the invitation to intimacy, so is the miraculous the invitation into the Beyond, the realm of God.  It points to the hidden dimension, the realm of the Spirit, and ultimately, to the domain of the King, the Kingdom of God.  By encountering the outward works of God, we are invited into the inner workings of the tabernacle, as we could put it.  What touched us the first time in our emotions is to draw us into a deeper, more complete relationship with the one that we love, the one we truly seek, the Son of Man, the perfect one, Jesus Christ, and the fullness of His heart.

If our work remains only on the outside, how superficial, how selfish, and how ungodly we have become.  But, if it leads past the physical, past the miracle, into the realm of the one who made the miracle, through repentance unto faith, through the finished work and shed blood of His cross, we have accomplished what it the sign was wrought for.

Truly, anyone who comes any other way is a thief and a robber.  To look to the miraculous signs as anything other than an invitation to relationship is such a carnal, materialistic notion, that it is not surprising at all that elsewhere Jesus said that it was an adulterous generation that asked for a sign (Matthew 16:4).  Anyone who uses the powers of faith, the anointing and power of God, for anything other than Kingdom business, and through the heart and character and nature of God, as displayed through the Sermon on the Mount, they are, by Jesus’ definition, an thief and a robber (John 10:1).  And, anyone who uses it for primarily self-promotion will get demoted in the age to come.

He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).  He is the Way (John 14:6), and all His commands lead to life (John 12:50).