Luke 11 (6)

Pray Psalm 16.5-8.
O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.
I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
I have set the LORD always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

Sing Psalm 16.5-8.
(All to Christ: Jesus Paid It All)
My portion and my cup are You, my Savior dear;
You help and hold me up and ever keep me near.
Refrain v. 11
Make me know life’s way! Pleasures fill Your hand.
Fill my life with joy each day! Before Your face I stand.

I bless Your Name, O Lord; my mind instructs each night;
You teach me by Your Word and guide me in the right.
Refrain

You are ever with me, Lord; in You I shall not fall.
But rejoicing in Your Word, I abide within Your call.
Refrain

Read Luke 11.1-13; meditate on verse 13.

Preparation
1. What does our heavenly Father want to give us?

2. How may we realize that promise?

Meditation
What does God want most of all for you? To be healthy? Happy? Wealthy? Untroubled and content? Secure in your job and your relationships? Have a good church and faithful friends?

Remember: the operative word here is not want but most.

Most of all, God wants you to know Him (Jn. 17.3). That means that He wants you to be full of Him (Eph. 3.19, 20). Most of all God wants you to dwell in Him and He in you, to abide in Him, and to rest in Him. This is because in God’s Presence is fullness of joy, and at His Right Hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16.10). We cannot imagine anything better than fullness of joy and holy pleasures forevermore. In this time between the resurrection of Jesus and His return, that means being filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5.18).

We keep seeking the wrong things from God in prayer. Or rather, we­ seek the right things but only incompletely. Whatever temporal thing or condition we may seek from the Lord cannot compare in the slightest to the joy and pleasure of His indwelling Presence, increasing in and transforming us to be more like Jesus (2 Cor. 3.12-18). So whatever you seek from the Lord, seek His Presence – His Spirit – and more of it, because when you receive and realize that, you’ll probably forget about whatever else you requested.

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
As Christians, we think that we must put behind us all boasting and braggadocio. We must be meek and mild, quiet and unassuming. But this might be a wrong assumption. In what way, you’re thinking? Well, in the matter of prayer. I think we can say, unequivocally, with much boasting: All our prayers are answered! All of them. All the time. Every one. Answered!

How so? Jesus said as much in this passage: “If you then, being evil, 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!” (Lk. 11.13) When our prayer is to be filled with His Holy Spirit, that prayer will always be answered in the affirmative.
Because this is what God wants most of all for us. As Jesus said before He ascended: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth…I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28.18, 20).

And then Jesus told His disciples to “wait for the Promise of the Father…you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” … And “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1.4, 5, 8).

God’s children, through all of time, have been recipients of this Promise: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezek. 36.27).

Jesus prayed this prayer for us: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (Jn. 14.16, 17). Most assuredly, Jesus’ prayer for us was and is answered!

Paul, though, adds in a little zinger in Romans 8.9: “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” If we belong to Him and pray to be filled with His Spirit, then we are His and will have that prayer answered. If we don’t, then we’re not. It’s just that simple.

“God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts…” (Gal. 4.6).
“By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 Jn. 4.13).

Wanna be a braggart who always has their prayers answered?

Then ask for the Holy Spirit—to be daily filled with Him to the full—for His glory and the edification of yourself and others. Seek the Spirit, ask your heavenly Father for Him, and receive the Answer. Every time.

For reflection
1. What makes the Holy Spirit such a desirable goal for our prayers?

2. How can you know when you are filled with the Holy Spirit?

3. God wants to give you His Spirit, but He insists that we ask. When should you ask for the filling of God’s Spirit?

But if, among human beings who are otherwise evil, natural devotion can do so much that they are generous with their children seeking necessities, how much more will your Father, who is the Father of spirits, who is by nature good, impart to you from heaven this good Spirit, which will bestow all good things if you ask for them from him? Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), Paraphrase on the Gospel of Luke 11:13.16

Pray Psalm 16.10, 11.
Meditate on Jesus, exalted in glory. See Him there in all His majesty, splendor, and might, looking upon You with His unfailing love. Speak to Him of your love for Him, and of how you long for His coming.

Sing Psalm 16.10, 11.
(All to Christ: Jesus Paid It All)
Soon Your glory I shall see, for as Jesus rose again,
You will come to gather me to my home with You in heav’n.
Refrain v. 11
Make me know life’s way! Pleasures fill Your hand.
Fill my life with joy each day! Before Your face I stand.

T. M. and Susie Moore

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available by clicking here.