The QuestSample

In the first four questions, God holds the lantern for the mortal to search himself in relationship to God: Where are you? Who told you that? What are you seeking? Why are you afraid? In radiant contrast, the question how much more will always take the gaze of the truth finder out of the murky deep of self-focus to the horizon where the sunrise spray-paints the sky.

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give … ?" Luke 11:13a

Christ gives away the answer through the rhetoric of the question: How much more?

So much more.

That three-word question and answer always unleashes an overflow of hope. 

A comparison between Luke’s wording and Matthew’s wording in this slice of Christ’s teaching is fascinating. Read Matthew 7:7-11. What do you make of that?

By the closing words of the Book of Acts, Luke had referenced the Holy Spirit more than fifty-five times. How does Acts 10:45 hold particular significance?

After all Luke had seen, heard, and experienced, no wonder under the inspiration of God his Gospel reads, “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:13). He knew with every scrap of his being that there was no gift on earth like the Holy Spirit. Imagine a doctor who’d built a career from systematized knowledge of scientific methods standing back and watching the Holy Spirit defy explanation and laws of nature. Luke was no gullible fool. He was adept at testing effects to determine causes. He’d seen innumerable manifestations of the Spirit through word, healing, and deed and had been employed by God to inscribe permanent records of miraculous encounters brought on by the selfsame Spirit. 

Remember, God is a giver. In the riveting words of Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (ESV). We could testify to temporal gifts God has given us until our voices are hoarse, but the sum of them pales in comparison to the supreme gift of Christ’s own Spirit. In this one present, we spend a lifetime unwrapping endless others: His comforts, His joys, His appointments, His empowerments, His directions, His affections. To these there is no end.