Prayer – Asking with Confidence as God's Children

Luke 11:1-13 – Responding to God in Prayer

Introduction

What if prayer wasn’t about performing for God, but resting in your identity as His child?

In this passage from Luke 11, Jesus doesn’t just give His disciples a prayer to recite. He offers them a new posture. As the true Son of God, Jesus invites us into His relationship with the Father, to pray not like beggars before a reluctant king, but like beloved children before a gracious and generous Father.

Gospel Exposition: Luke 11:1–13

Jesus begins by teaching what we know as the Lord’s Prayer (vv. 2–4), not as a ritual formula, but as a vision of childlike, dependent relationship: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins…”

He teaches us to ask for provision, pardon, and protection. Not abstract concepts, but real, daily needs. Because prayer is where we learn to live dependently on the Father, the way Jesus Himself did.

To help us understand this kind of prayer, Jesus tells a story (vv. 5–8) about a friend knocking on a neighbor’s door at midnight. The man doesn’t want to get up, but the bold, persistent knocking finally gets a response.

But Jesus is not comparing God to a sleepy neighbor. He’s making a contrast: If even a reluctant friend will eventually respond, how much more will your loving Father respond quickly and joyfully?

That’s why Jesus says: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you…” (v. 9)

Those three words, ask, seek, knock, describe ongoing, persistent prayer. Not because God is unwilling, but because we are being shaped in the asking. He invites us to keep coming, keep trusting, keep leaning in.

Then comes the climax of Jesus’ teaching in verse 13: “If you then…know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

What is the greatest gift we could receive in prayer? Not merely health, provision, or solutions, but God Himself, through the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is the heartbeat of prayer: God gives us His very presence.

Worshipping Jesus

• Worship Jesus as the true Son, who teaches us how to speak to the Father and brings us into His own access to God.

• Thank Him for giving you His Spirit, the greatest gift, so you’re never alone when you pray.

• Rejoice that in Jesus, you are not a beggar knocking for crumbs, but a child welcomed to the table.

Reflection and Response

• Are you more likely to treat prayer as a task or a relationship?

• Where in your life do you need to learn to ask, seek, and knock again?

• What would change in your prayer life if you believed the Father actually delights to give you His Spirit?

A Prayer

Father, thank You that I can call You that, not just as a word, but as my true identity in Christ. Teach me to ask, to seek, and to knock, not to earn Your favor, but because I already have it in Jesus. Thank You for the gift of the Spirit. Help me pray like a child who is deeply loved. Amen.

Discipleship Challenge

This week, use the Lord’s Prayer as a guide for your personal prayer. Each day, pause to ask the Father for provision, pardon, and protection. And most of all, ask Him for more of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in your life.

“How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” – Luke 11:13