God did not design to depend on Him without following instructions. I learned my first lesson on MCGI from Bro Eli about what the Bible means when it says: “it is not sufficient to just pray.”
Every prayer we render to God comes with instruction, action, and work. I understand the statement of Bro Eli when he shared that we do not just pray for God to receive us. We pray and after praying, we begin to do what God wants us to do. The result of our night and day prayer is stagnant when we do not put in the work that is demanded. This can be seen explicitly in the teaching of Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:7
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.source
From my understanding of Bro Eli's teaching, to ask God means to pray. According to the teaching of Jesus Christ, we believers are instructed to ask. However, it doesn’t end there, we SEEK. Let me explain it this way: if we ask for a piece of daily bread but we keep being in our house all day, the bread will not fall from heaven to our plate. We need to go out according to God’s instruction and seek bread.
As a believer, we need to employ actions, and not only pray. Seeking comes after we have asked God for what we need. So, Bro Eli's admonition is this:
after praying, act accordingly. After asking God for a house, go out and seek. Seek money, opportunities, jobs, etc. then begin to build. Do not stay idle! It is what God detests.
Finally, to my readers, the summary of this section is: Do not just ask, but act. God does not want us to be lazy; He wants us to put our beliefs to work.
Ask and act, that is the teaching of the Bible – Bro Eli