“Who among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)

Jesus restored people’s confidence in God, and in the effectiveness of prayer toward God. He knew God, and he was God. He directed prayers to the Father. And he had received prayers directed toward himself. He knew about prayer more than anyone. And he said that when you pray, God will not only answer you, but he will answer you in the way you ask, and give you the very thing that you ask.

Suppose you ask me to tell you the time, and I slap you in the face. That is an answer, but it is not a good answer, and it is not the answer you want. It does not address your need or your desire. Suppose you ask me to bring you some groceries, and I bring you some clothes. That is an answer, and this time it is not harmful to you, but it does not address your request, and you remain in a worsening state of lack and suffering.

If we keep on like this, your confidence in me would erode. You would think that if you need to know the time, you should ask someone else, or you should find out for yourself, so that you don’t get slapped in the face, and still don’t know the time. And if you want some groceries, you should ask somebody else for help, or visit the market yourself. Appealing for my help becomes useless and unpredictable. Whenever you speak up, you never know what you will get from me, or what I will do to you. It would be better to turn away from me and turn to other people, or become self-reliant. If you have any relationship with me at all, there would not be total trust and exchange, but much of it would be symbolic, and there would be much reservation and suspicion.

This is what faithless teachings on prayer have done. They warp people’s perception about God. They make their worship of God tiresome. Their religion becomes an additional burden to all the problems that they face. Instead of swooping in as a mighty savior, God becomes a giant threat added on top of all their worries. This kind of theology transforms God into one of the cruel and capricious pagan deities, who do not exist at all or that are in fact demons that oppress those who have not discovered freedom in Christ Jesus. This is an injustice against God, and against the people whom he calls to worship him.

Jesus made this point on purpose, that when you ask God for one thing, he would not give you a different thing, because faithless theology and tradition always attempt to justify failure and disappointment. And there is so much failure and disappointment, because in faithless theology and tradition there is in fact no God, except as a word or symbol. Faithless religionists would tell you to pray, and then say that regardless of what you ask, whatever you get is the answer. Thus failure is never your fault, but it is God’s decision. This is also how they deceive themselves. Prayer, therefore, aggravates your pain and suffering, but you are commanded to accept it as the will of God.

According to faithless theology, regardless of what you ask or how much faith you possess, God will respond by giving you something that he decides is best, and that is probably different from what you ask or the opposite of what you ask, even what you would regard as a threat to you and something that would make your situation much worse. Jesus denied this teaching on God and on prayer. He indicated that to think this is how God operates is to suggest that God is worse than human sinners.

Faithless doctrine leads to uncertainty in prayer, and the worry that prayer might lead to greater suffering. In fact, it is almost guaranteed that you will get something different from what you ask, but you are forced to say that it is something better than what you ask, because it is something that God decides to give you instead. Jesus overturned such absurdity by his teachings on God, and on faith and prayer.

How would you know what God decides to give you? According to Jesus, just listen to yourself! Do you hear what you are asking in prayer? What you ask is what God decides to give you. The child asks for bread, so the parent decides to give him bread. The child asks for a fish, so the parent decides to give him a fish. When a child speaks up and asks for a fish, he knows what he will have for dinner. How does he know? He does not need special insight into the will of his parents. He does not need to wait for whatever appears on the table to know what his parents have decided. He just listens to himself. Whatever he says is what he will receive. Whatever he asks is what the parents will decide to give him. This is the theology of faith, and it is as simple as that.

There is another side to how we apply this teaching of Jesus. If it is true that when we ask for a fish, God will give us a fish, and if it is true that when we ask for a fish, God will not give us a snake, then it must mean that when we get a snake, it must not be from God and we must not accept it. If a child asks for a fish but receives a snake and accepts it, he is either mentally disabled or chronically abused. When I ask God for a fish, and a snake appears, I must not think that it is God’s answer to my prayer. I must reject the snake, and insist on a fish.

If I pray for healing, and the sickness continues or worsens, I must never think that it is the will of God for the sickness to continue or worsen, because that is not what I ask. Since I ask for healing, then only healing is the answer from God. Just because something happens after my prayer does not mean that it is God’s answer to my prayer. I can have confidence that it is not the final word on the situation because it is not what I ask for in prayer. God’s answer to my prayer is what I ask in my prayer, not something different or opposite. The Faithless teach that God might replace what you ask with something different, something less, something painful, and then they threaten you to lie and say that it is better. This kind of oppressive doctrine is among the religious injustices that Jesus came to overturn.

Jesus said that God is eager to give “good things” to those who ask. And these good things are not defined by some unknown standard. In his own teaching, Jesus defined the good things as the things that you ask in prayer. So don’t ask for a stone when you can ask for bread, or a snake when you can ask for a fish. Don’t ask for sickness, but have faith for healing! Don’t ask for poverty, but have faith for prosperity! Don’t ask for depression and defeat, but have faith for happiness and success! Don’t ask for suffering, but have faith for deliverance and victory. Don’t ask for shame and stagnation in your ministry, but have faith for miracles and prophecies to accompany your evangelism and teaching.

It is impossible to restrict this teaching to the several categories of things that the religious consider worthy of mentioning to God. This is because the whole point is how God responds to what we decide to ask him, not what he decides to give on his own. Jesus did not say that when a child asks for a fish, it would be good to give him a toy. The child might very well ask for a toy on a different occasion, but the point of the teaching is that the parents would give the child exactly what he asks, not something good in another category, and not even some other kind of food.

It is not a matter of whether God wants to give us a spiritual or natural thing, or this or that thing in this or that category. The teaching is not applied to any specific category of things until we know what you are asking. If you are asking for money to pay your bills and fund your projects, then the topic is how God responds to your prayer for money. The topic does not suddenly become spiritual wealth, or healing and prophecy, or some other thing. The category that this teaching applies to is defined by your prayer.

Jesus said that not a sparrow can fall to the ground apart from the will of God. Yet more than anyone, he emphasized the decisive power of the will of man in faith, prayer, and miracles. If we care so much about the will of God in prayer, then let us never ask for things that are against the will of God. Let us never think that the bad things are his answer to us. Never ask for sickness, poverty, and suffering. Do not accept disease. Do not settle for defeat. What if a little girl asks her father for a snake or scorpion? Would that not put him in a difficult position? Would that not be an abuse? Just as to ask for a snake would be to put a good parent to the test, to accept sickness and failure would be to put a good God to the test. It would be a form of rebellion and abuse.

In any case, Jesus offered this teaching more than once. As he traveled to various places, he would repeat his lessons to the different crowds. So we find the same teaching expressed a little differently in the Gospel of Luke: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”

In the Gospel of Matthew, the teaching is applied to all good things, and the good things are defined by the person who prays, the one who asks for these good things. Here in the Gospel of Luke, the teaching can likewise apply to all good things, since Jesus also said that the human parents knew how to give good gifts to their children. However, he made a specific application to the Father’s readiness to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

This is another piece of good news. The Holy Spirit is not an empty expression in the Bible, but refers to God himself, the very Spirit of God that brings miracles and prophecies. Luke consistently refers to the Holy Spirit with this in mind. As Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” And Jesus included the Holy Spirit as one of the things that is ours for the asking.

The Spirit is not restricted to those who have some special calling or qualification, or those who have attained unique levels of holiness. A parent will give a fish to a child who asks for a fish. The parent will not refuse to give the child a fish, or give the child a snake instead. In the same way, the Father God will give anyone who asks him for the Holy Spirit. He will not deny the one who asks, and he will not give the person something else, something different, or something inferior. This person will receive nothing less than the Holy Spirit and all that it means to receive him — power, wisdom, courage, and miracles.

Jesus was not referring to salvation. He did not mean that the Father would save anyone who asks. When you repent of your sins and receive salvation, you do not say, “Father, give me your Holy Spirit,” or “Holy Spirit, I believe in you and receive you.” No, you talk about Jesus. You believe in your heart that Jesus suffered and died in your place, and that God raised him from the dead for your justification. And you declare with your mouth that you renounce your sins and former life, and that from now on you would follow Jesus Christ, that you would believe in him and obey him. In this way, you are saved. And you are saved even if there is no knowledge and no mention of the Holy Spirit.

Asking for the Holy Spirit is another event altogether. It happens after a person receives Jesus Christ, and it involves a different operation of God. When a person follows Jesus Christ, he begins a new life. And when a person receives the Holy Spirit, he obtains another dimension of power to live this new life and to preach the gospel with power, wisdom, and with miracles. He becomes a witness for Christ. When you receive Christ, you receive life. When you receive the Spirit, you receive power.

Jesus and Luke considered this so important that a specific application was made for the teaching on prayer. You can ask for many things in prayer, and God will give you what you ask, but if you are going to ask for anything at all, make sure you ask for the Holy Spirit, knowing that this means you are asking for superhuman power, wisdom, boldness, and all kinds of signs and wonders and supernatural experiences.

In the teachings of Jesus, including the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit always comes with miraculous and prophetic powers. The teaching of Jesus on prayer would mean that when you ask for the Holy Spirit, God will give you this same Holy Spirit, and the same powers and experiences. He will not give you an evil spirit, or some other spirit that has no miracles and no revelations. The Holy Spirit will teach you all truths, including the same truths demonstrated in Scripture. God will not give you another spirit, and you must not accept another spirit or another gospel.

It is necessary to emphasize this teaching from Jesus. If receiving the Spirit is merged with receiving Christ, then it is in fact destroyed, and the people’s potential to receive this extra dimension of power is also destroyed. Satan has used his theologians to maintain this error in theology, because the Spirit’s power in God’s people is a most extreme threat to the kingdom of darkness. The ones who oppose this distinction between receiving Jesus Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit is in effect speaking against the Holy Spirit. “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

After someone has become a Christian, we can use the teaching of Jesus on prayer to build his confidence. If he asks God for the Holy Spirit, which means he also asks for the supernatural powers and experiences that the Spirit brings, then this is what God will give him. God will not withhold the Spirit from him, and God will not give him some other spirit. God will not give him a spirit that fails to produce what the Holy Spirit brings. If you ask to heal the sick and cast out demons, or to speak in tongues and prophesy, God will not refuse, and he will not give you something lame and weak instead. First, you are encouraged to ask. Second, you are promised the answer. Third, you must refuse anything different or inferior.