"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" LUK 11:13

Our Saviour teaches us the need for importunity in prayer.

He gives us such a beautiful illustration of the Father's attentiveness to prayer in the parable in LUK 11:11-13. "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"

The Lord speaks of the most precious promises in EZE 36:25-27, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."

We shall not just sit idly by and wait for the Lord to grant these precious promises without asking. He tells us in EZE 36:37 "Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." "He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry," PSA 147:9.

The Lord will not bring His blessings in our soul when we have no desire for them. The Lord tells us in PRO 27:7, "The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet."

As a result of his fallen nature, man, "rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High," PSA 107:11. "Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and there was none to help . . . He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder," PSA 107:12-14.

By His chastening hand, the Lord creates a true hunger and thirst after righteousness, and brings about that true prayer of importunity.

"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of His correction: For whom the LORD loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth," PRO 3:11-12. Our lovely Saviour tells us in the words of our text that the tenderness of our heavenly Father so far excels that of our natural father.

We are admonished, "And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him, For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" HEB 12:5-7.

We read in PSA 107:5-9, "Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses . . . Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness."