Can we truly ask God for what we want and expect to receive it?
Christians throughout time have wrestled with this question. Most Christians have experienced exactly that. We’ve prayed for needs or desires and seen specific answers appear. That is the good news. Through Jesus, we are reconciled to God, our Father, who is a good, loving, generous God who delights in giving good gifts to His children.
This collection of “ask and you shall receive” Bible verses explores what Scripture says about praying with faith, bringing your requests to God, and trusting His wisdom when His answers are yes, no, or wait.
How Can We Learn to Ask and Pray in Faith?
God loves to hear from us in prayer, and He invites us to depend on Him for our needs. As we grow in faith, develop the mind of Jesus, and purify our hearts, we pray more and more in line with His will and desires for our lives.
Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened,” (Matthew 7:7-8 ESV).
We can trust Jesus, but we also must see from this passage that He’s talking about a true relationship, not about treating God like a genie in a bottle. The terms He uses, ask, seek, and knock, speak to a pursuit of God, persevering in our search for Him as we seek those things for which we ask. God isn’t, clearly, a heavenly vending machine. Christians everywhere also have stories of asking and not receiving. Sometimes the reason for that is very clear; other times, it’s more challenging.
This isn’t a quick answer conversation. Praying to God isn’t like filling out an order form. We don’t expect that if we hit the correct formula and tick all the boxes we can suddenly receive all that we ask, especially if we’re asking unwisely or selfishly, as we often do. James 4:2-3 warns us that sometimes we don’t get what we want either because we don’t ask or because we ask with wrong motives.
There are other times, though, when we’ve prayed for a sick loved one to recover or for a marriage to survive that we weren’t praying with wrong motives, and yet, sometimes God’s answer is disappointing. That is when we must trust that even when God doesn’t answer the way we had hoped that He still “causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28 NASB). Jesus once prayed in Gethsemane for there to be another way, but He surrendered His will to the Father’s will. “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will,” (Matthew 26:39).
Asking for what we want and need is part of a full relationship with God, even when sometimes His answer is no. We can always pray in faith and with expectancy, trusting in God’s character that He will respond with perfect wisdom, mercy, justice, and love.
Ask and You Shall Receive Bible Verses
- Matthew 7:11 ESV “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
- Matthew 18:19 ESV “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”
- Matthew 21:21-22 ESV “And Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.’”
- Mark 11:24 ESV “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
- Luke 18:1-8 ESV “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’”
- John 14:14 ESV “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
- John 15:7 ESV “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
- John 15:16 ESV “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
- John 16:24 ESV “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
- Ephesians 3:20 ESV "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
- Philippians 4:6 ESV “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
- James 1:5 ESV “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
- James 4:3 ESV “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
- 1 John 3:22 ESV “And whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
- 1 John 5:14-15 ESV “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”
- Job 22:28 ESV “You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways.”
- Psalm 37:4 ESV “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
- Psalm 23:1-6 ESV “A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”
- Jeremiah 33:3 ESV “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
Study, Reflect, Pray, Pray Again
As followers of Jesus, our primary focus is to know and enjoy God. Prayer is one way we communicate with Him, and He encourages us to pray at all times in many ways. This isn’t meant to be a burden but an invitation to know He is always eager to hear from His children and available to listen. Reading these “ask and receive” verses, it’s clear God wants us to ask for what we need and that He cares about the desires of our hearts.
We can trust God completely because He is just, holy, merciful, gracious, and abounding in love. So, too, we can bring to Him our requests, offering Him gratitude when He responds with a yes, confessing our disappointment or sorrow when His answer is no, but also leaning on our faith that He knows what is best.
As we mature in faith, we will learn more each day about how to pray and about His will for various situations in our lives. He is always ready to guide us and to receive our prayers.
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