Why Keep Asking? 6-Day Devotional
Oct 11, 2026
This Week
Sermon: Why Keep Asking?, Matthew 7:7-11
Big idea: Keep on asking your good Father.
This week's practice: Every day, pray the one prayer you quit on. Out loud. Start it with one word: "Father."
Each day takes about ten minutes. Read the Scripture slowly. Read the devotional. Answer one of the questions honestly, on paper if you can. Pray. Then do the practice.
All Scripture is from the New Living Translation (NLT).
Day 1: Keep On
Scripture
"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." Matthew 7:7
Devotional
Most of us have a prayer we stopped praying.
We did not announce it. We did not stop believing in God. We just stopped bringing that one thing up. The marriage. The child. The job. The money. The diagnosis. We asked for weeks, maybe for years, and nothing changed. So we started praying safe prayers. We prayed small so we could not be disappointed big.
Now look at the two words Jesus repeats three times: "keep on." He is not saying, "Ask once." He is saying, "Keep on asking."
Think about what that means. You do not tell someone to keep on knocking if the door opens on the first knock. Jesus is assuming a gap. A stretch of time when you have asked, and you do not have it yet. He is not surprised by your wait. He built it into the command.
So your waiting is not proof that you prayed wrong. It is not proof that your faith is too small. It is the very situation Jesus was talking to.
There is a difference between being consistent and being persistent. Consistent is about the calendar: you pray every morning. Persistent is about the obstacle: you pray again after nothing happened. Jesus is calling for both. Consistency keeps you at the door. Persistence keeps you knocking.
Today is not about finding a new prayer. It is about going back to the old one.
Reflect
What is the prayer you stopped praying?
When did you stop, and what made you stop?
What would it look like to pick it back up today?
Pray
Father, I stopped asking You about something that still matters to me. I got tired, and I got quiet. Today I am coming back to Your door. Teach me to keep on asking, not because I have figured out the answer, but because You told me to keep on. In Jesus' name, amen.
Today's Practice
Write down the one prayer you quit on. Then pray it out loud, and start with one word: "Father."
Day 2: Everyone
Scripture
"For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:8
"But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God." John 1:12
Devotional
Jesus says the promise twice. Verse 7 gives the command. Verse 8 repeats it, and adds one word: "everyone."
Some of us quietly believe God listens to other people more than He listens to us. The deacon who prays long prayers. The mother of the church. The person with the title. Their prayers get through. Ours bounce off the ceiling.
Jesus does not leave room for that. Not everyone who prays well. Not everyone with a clean record. Everyone who asks.
But notice who Jesus is talking to. He is teaching His disciples, and in a few verses He will call God "your heavenly Father." This promise is for children speaking to their Father. That is why John 1:12 matters. Anyone who believes Jesus and receives Him is given the right to become a child of God. If you are not sure you belong to Him, that door is open today too.
And if you are His child, hear this. You are in that word "everyone."
Someone might ask, "If my Father already knows what I need, why do I have to keep telling Him?" Because prayer is not a report. You are not updating God. A child does not ask for breakfast because the parent forgot that children eat. A child asks because that is what a child does with a father.
You are not asking to inform Him. You are asking because you are His.
Reflect
Whose prayers have you assumed God hears more than yours? Why?
Do you know that you are a child of God? If not, what is holding you back?
How would your prayers change if you believed you were included in "everyone"?
Pray
Father, I have acted like Your door was open for other people and not for me. Thank You that Jesus said "everyone." I am Your child because of Jesus, not because I have earned it. So I am asking again, not to inform You, but because I am Yours. In Jesus' name, amen.
Today's Practice
Pray the prayer you quit on, out loud, starting with "Father." Before you begin, say this sentence once: "I am included in everyone."
Day 3: Bread, Not a Stone
Scripture
"You parents, if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not!" Matthew 7:9-10
"Give us today the food we need." Matthew 6:11
Devotional
Jesus moves prayer out of the sky and into the kitchen.
A child is hungry. The child asks for bread. Asks for fish. In Galilee, that was a regular meal. This child is not asking for a luxury. This child is asking for dinner.
One chapter earlier, Jesus taught these same people to pray, "Give us today the food we need." The child in verse 9 is doing exactly what the Lord's Prayer teaches. So the request is not the problem. Jesus never tells the child that asking for bread is too small or too earthly. You are allowed to bring God the rent, the car, the job, the test result.
Now look at what the child does not get. A stone. A snake. A small round loaf could look like a stone, and a snake could pass for a fish. So this is a picture of a father who hands his child a fake. Something that looks like an answer, and then you bite down and break a tooth.
Here is why that matters. Under many of the prayers we stopped praying sits a suspicion we never say out loud in church: "I asked God for bread, and I got a rock." "I asked Him to help, and it got worse."
Jesus puts that suspicion on the table. Then He asks one question: would you do that to your own child? And He answers it Himself: "Of course not!"
If you would not do that, do not believe it about God.
Reflect
What is your "bread" right now, the everyday need you are asking God for?
Has anything in your life felt like a stone from God? Name it honestly.
What would change if you stopped believing God would hand you a fake?
Pray
Father, I need bread. Here is what I need today: [name it]. I confess that sometimes I have suspected You of handing me stones. Jesus says You would never do that. Help me believe Him over my suspicion. In Jesus' name, amen.
Today's Practice
Pray the prayer you quit on, out loud, starting with "Father." Be specific. Ask for bread, not for "blessings in general."
Day 4: When "Father" Is a Hard Word
Scripture
"Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close." Psalm 27:10
"You received God's Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, 'Abba, Father.'" Romans 8:15
Devotional
Yesterday Jesus asked, "What parent would hand a hungry child a stone?" For some of us, the honest answer is: mine.
Some of us had a father who handed us stones. Some had a father who hurt us. And some of us knocked on a door growing up, and nobody came at all. So when the Bible says "Father," we do not feel warm. We flinch.
If that is you, hear what Jesus is doing in this passage. He is not asking you to picture God as a bigger version of the man who raised you, or the man who left. In verse 11 He will say that even the best father on earth is a sinner next to God. The comparison does not start with your father and go up. It starts with God and goes down.
So do not measure God by the father who failed you. Measure that father by God. Your Father in heaven is not a larger copy of the one who disappointed you. He is the One your father was supposed to point to.
David knew this pain. In Psalm 27:10 he names the parent who walks away, and in the same breath he names the Lord who holds him close.
And Paul says something remarkable in Romans 8:15. God did not just tolerate us. He adopted us. He chose us as His own children, and He gave us His Spirit so that we could call Him "Abba, Father." Abba is the family word, the word a child uses at home.
You do not have to force a feeling today. You only have to tell Him the truth.
An absent or harmful father is a real loss, and many of us have never been given permission to grieve it. If this day stirs up more than you expected, please talk with one of your pastors. You do not have to carry it alone.
Reflect
When you hear the word "Father," what is the first thing you feel?
In what ways have you measured God by an earthly father?
What would it mean to you that God chose to adopt you?
Pray
Father, that word is not easy for me. You know why. I am asking You to be what no man in my life could be. Hold me close the way David said You would. Teach me to call You "Abba," and to mean it. In Jesus' name, amen.
Today's Practice
Pray the prayer you quit on, out loud, starting with "Father." If that word is hard to say today, say it anyway, slowly, and tell Him why it is hard.
Day 5: How Much More
Scripture
"So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him." Matthew 7:11
"My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9
Devotional
This is the verse the whole passage has been building toward. Days 1 and 2 told us what to do: keep on asking. Today tells us why.
Jesus does not flatter the parents in the crowd. He calls them "sinful people." Flawed. Selfish sometimes. Quick-tempered. And still, when their child is hungry, they get up. They work the extra shift. They go without so the kids can eat.
Then come three words that hold the whole passage together: "how much more."
Think of the best parent you have ever known. The grandmother who raised children who were not hers. The father who never missed a game. Jesus says that is the low end of the comparison. Start there, and go up.
Now look closely at the promise. Verse 7 says you will receive what you ask for. Verse 11 tells you what that looks like: "good gifts." He promised good. He did not promise identical.
Any good parent understands this. A child can ask for something that looks like bread to them, while the parent can see it is a stone. A good father does not hand it over just because the child asked twice. Sometimes we are the ones asking for the snake, and the Father loves us too much to give it to us.
Paul learned this. He asked the Lord three separate times to take away his thorn. The thorn stayed. What came instead was grace: "My grace is all you need." Paul kept on asking, and the Father gave him something good. It was not what Paul ordered. It was what Paul needed.
So why keep asking? Not because your prayer is strong. Because your Father is good.
Reflect
Who is the best parent you have known? Now picture "how much more."
Can you remember a time God gave you something good that was not what you asked for?
Are you willing to trust Him with the answer, not just the request?
Pray
Father, You are better than the best father I have ever known. I am asking You again, and I am trusting You with the answer. If what I am asking for is a stone, do not give it to me. Give me what is good, even when it does not look like what I ordered. In Jesus' name, amen.
Today's Practice
Pray the prayer you quit on, out loud, starting with "Father." End it with this sentence: "Give me what is good."
Day 6: Still Knocking
Scripture
"He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, 'My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.'" Matthew 26:39
Devotional
There was a night when Jesus Himself kept on asking.
In the garden of Gethsemane, He went down with His face to the ground. He called God "My Father," and He asked for the cup of suffering to be taken away. Then He went back and prayed again. And then a third time, saying the same things (Matthew 26:42-44).
The One who taught "keep on asking" kept on asking. And every time, He surrendered the answer to His Father: "Your will to be done, not mine."
The cup did not pass. The answer was the cross.
If you had stood at that cross on Friday, you would have said, "That is a stone. The Father did not hear Him." But by Sunday morning, that cross had become the greatest gift the Father ever gave. It was your forgiveness. It was your way home.
So when you cannot see the good in what the Father is doing, look at the cross. It is proof that He can take what looks like a stone on Friday and show you bread on Sunday.
You have spent this week going back to a door you had walked away from. Maybe it has opened. Maybe it has not opened yet. Either way, you know whose door it is. It is better to knock on your Father's door and wait than to walk away and have no door at all.
Tomorrow is Sunday. Keep on asking your good Father.
Reflect
What has changed in you this week, even if your situation has not changed yet?
Can you pray, "Your will to be done, not mine," about the prayer you picked back up?
What will help you keep knocking after this week ends?
Pray
Father, Jesus kept asking, and He trusted You when the answer was hard. I want to pray like Him. I am still knocking. I do not have every answer, but I know whose door this is. Your will be done, not mine. In Jesus' name, amen.
Today's Practice
Pray the prayer you quit on, out loud, starting with "Father," and end it the way Jesus did: "Your will be done, not mine." Then decide to keep praying it after this week is over.