Irreverence and
our warped view of God.
Over emphasizing an attribute of God at the expense of His
other attributes does not make God better. The bible never uses a comparative
word on God’s attributes. They are absolute and definite. For example, singing
about God’s goodness and confessing that He is love cannot make God good or
better. It cannot make God to love more. He is good and He is love essentially.
We cannot add anything to God neither can we subtract from who He is. When we
make confessions and sing certain songs, we help and edify ourselves and not
God, no matter what we do. He rejoices in our fellowship not because He has a
need; not because we have made the fellowship meeting sweet or decorated the
place to look nice but solely because He has chosen to dwell in the praises of
His people. Fellowship is very important to God. The gathering of His people is
a special convocation. This is because it is in such a fellowship that God
dwells.
Having said that, it is good for
us to note that there is nothing we do in this life that is doing God a favour.
Many of us live as if we and God are in a game of chess. Doing what we ought to
do is seen as if we are only being kind to Him, as if without us He cannot be
God. We live and talk as if God is God only at our mercy; as if we and God come
with our bargaining chips and trade on what happens in our lives and the lives
of others; that is, God places His cards on the table while we come with our
own too. In fact, we even behave as the side that has the upper hand. God must
bow to our pressure and do what we want Him to do for Him to remain God.
It shows in our prayers. Do we
really pray? What is prayer? When we pray to God, what do we tell Him? Do we
speak like children in the presence of their Father and King or do we speak
like kings on our thrones who demands God to do whatever we want Him to do? Do
we show reverence in our hearts, bringing our helplessness, hopelessness,
limitations, needs, challenges, uncertainties, fallibility and incompleteness
to Him who is enough for us and without whom we are nothing? What is prayer and
how do we pray? Do we just come and throw words at Him, exercise ourselves and
sweat and come out with the feeling that we have prayed? Is that really prayer?
A brother once was coordinating a prayer session and asked the people to repeat
after him, “my father, my fire…”. I
later asked him, “why are you saying ‘my father my fire’? Where did you learn
that from? What do you really mean?” He couldn’t proffer any answer. I
discovered that because he shouts and encourages the people to shout in their
prayers under an emotionally charged atmosphere, he feels good and satisfied
that he has led a very hot prayer session. We feel good but do not care how God
feels. What we easily forget is that our declarations in prayers are never
towards God but towards Satan and his cohorts, our lives, circumstances.
You know, the environment many of
us come from is still affecting us. We view God the same way a native doctor
views his god, because of our idolatrous backgrounds. A native doctor can use
his god or ask him to do good or to do bad depending on his mood and what he
wants. Oftentimes, that is our approach to God when we come to the place of
prayer. We have a God we use and not a God we fear and worship. We have a God
we send on errands, who serves our interests and not a God we serve and who is
sovereign. We come to Him with our shoulders raised high instead of bowing in
humility.
He has promised to answer our
prayers not at the expense of anything. He answers our prayers because He has
promised to do so and delights in our fellowship. We cannot even explain that
but He has chosen to relate to us that way because He loves us. There are no
specific words that impress God. There are no holy places anymore, where you
must go or face for Him to answer. There are no postures that give you an
express ticket to His presence. That is why it is not in our eloquence or
crafty use of words that make Him answer.
I have seen God answer prayers even though the person praying used bad
English. Our motives, intentions, hidden agendas and life follow our prayers,
hence God looks beyond our good and nice and correct English words.
Now, are we really praying when we ask God to kill
people? This high hand with which some of us come to God only shows our pride,
ego, bitterness and unforgiveness. We curse in prayer and send out arrows to
harm people in prayers and still think that we are fellowshipping with God. We
see ourselves as very special to the extent that we can use God to achieve
whatever we want to achieve. We think that we can move God to show one of His
attributes over the others just because of us. Unfortunately for us, that is
impossible. It is having an incorrect view of God. For example, God cannot,
because of His children, be unjust to the unbelievers. Furthermore, some people we see today as
unbelievers are tomorrow’s saints...
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