Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8 AMP) In order to 'keep on', one must have begun in the first place. If you have been waiting for God to answer a 'hoped for' something in your life and you have never sat down to talk with him about it, how can you expect it? It isn't that God doesn't already know what we desire, but he may need to help us clarify what it is we need, when the right timing will be, and exactly how he will meet that desire. In asking, we set out our desire. In listening, he often brings clarity we might have missed otherwise. Ask, seek, and knock. None of these are passive. All suggest an element of us taking some form of action. Receive, find, and open are God's actions on our beha...
Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] (Galatians 6:7 AMP) Deluded - I had to look that one up to make sure I knew the exact meaning. It is more than just being misled - it means the individual actually believes something that is wrong. It is like seeing the color green but believing with all your heart that it is orange. The more someone tries to convince you it is not orange, the more you dig into your misdirected and mistaken belief that it is orange. Deception has many forms. We can bring it on ourselves because we don't want to believe truth, choosing some other 'story' that we tell ourselves because it is more convenient or more 'tolerable' to our taste. It can be thrown out there by others, reported as truth over and over again, until one day we acce...