A God who gives everything???

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, 'I will follow you wherever you go.'
And Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'

These words from Luke 9 accompany me everywhere I go. They challenge me when I encounter the flaky people who engage in the error that is to be found in the 'Word of Faith' (WoF) approach to Christianity and keep me focused on the important and real. Especially when they seem to forget that Jesus' words have power and yet theirs, as they proclaim and appear to be telling God what to do, even when they might claim the words of Matthew 21:

'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.'

Now don't get me wrong for I am not doubting the words above - but I do doubt those who might think that they can command God to give what they want. we can ask in the knowledge that we have a God who gives His children good things but, like any good parent, He doesn't give us everything we ask for. There is context and balance and so much more to be taken into account.

I continue to struggle when I see so many of the merchants of prosperity living lifestyles of sacrifice and giving, especially when it is the sacrifice and giving of others, others who appear to be lacking in money, possession and wit*!

I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. They preach something that is almost correct and yet there is enough deviation from God's truth that eventually the follower finds themselves well off track - and often still in the same place they were but just a little poorer from all the merchandise, teaching conferences and 'seed gifts'.

The Jewish way of thinking was that health and wealth were affirmations of God's blessing and this persists with those who see prosperity and health as endorsements of that same God in the same old blessings. Yet looking at many who will preach prosperity, with the ever present caveat that if you don't receive there's sin, unconfessed and perhaps unknown, that stops the blessing from coming on through. The Jews also sought God's judgement on people while they lived because they assumed that dying wicked and rich meant they were home free (always good to read the imprecatory Psalms innit) but that denied a judgement later.

This might offend some but I see little to separate many of the WoF folk from those engaged in witchcraft for both seek to control the spiritual realms for their own ends and by their own faith bring that which they want into being. Sadly, both deny Jesus - even though, ironically) they spout the Bible and yet seek to control God - telling Him what to bring them in a confused understanding of what it means when we say 'Jesus is the servant of all mankind'.

So today - wherever we are, whatever needs we have, we can bring them to God in the knowledge that He does hear and does give His children 'good things' - the problem is that broccoli is a good and healthy option when chocolate might not be.

Rarely hear of people praying for the healthy option - they appear to be praying for:

Money - not wisdom

Good health - not a healthy attitude

Themselves - not others

Hmmm

*Wit meaning brainpower (not clever and/or humorous utterances - mind you, it's hard not to laugh innit

Triumphalism - is there ever a place for it?

I'm one of those sad people who believe that God really is the 'Lord of All' and that with one word (although I prefer Jeremy Begbie's 'one chord' or 'one note' - how great to think God 'sang' it all into being) caused everything that is to be. After all, if the Big Bang was 13.7bn years ago then the scientific question has to be what or who caused it! (I'd also be interested to hear how we find ourselves in the right place (as the third rock from the hot thing) to live with all the conditions (temperature, gravity and more besides) to actually support life and the chance of that life being is another great issue to discuss one day too!).

But, what really gets me going is those people who love to greet their neighbour with the:

'God is able'

cry in the morning;  for if a loud shout is a pain and a vexation I'll leave it to you to guess at what order of magnitude this is magnified by!

'Our God is able, ALL you need to do is merely rebuke satan and he will flee,' they cry.
'The power of God is in you to rebuke illness, just claim it and you will be healed!' 

And the sadness is that in all reality that words are true, but not as they understand or use them!

I believe that God heals - in fact in my time as a God-botherer I have prayed for blind people and they saw (I'll have to tell you that story some time) and I believe that when we call upon the LORD, He hears and acts. The problem is that more often than not it is the Christian who 'live with a thorn in their side' who more often than not will quote the Hinns, Meyers, Cerullos and others of the glam Christian Evopersonality types that cause me the most trouble, for they take authority over what is with (or within them) when they should be letting it humble and temper them. They live in victory and yet exist in chains!

You probably know the type - one minute they are limping along and the next they are singing hallelujahs and claiming everything in sight - binding this and claiming that and living in the freedom of God for a few minutes before they swing back the other way. The problem is that their problem wounds others and  makes God look like a woman buying a hat (I know this first hand as my mother usually left with the same thing she cam in with!).

Let's be just a little rational about this and understand that:

i. The Apostle Paul had his problems and so too, will we. I don't think it is always valid to rebuke stuff and bind, cast out or claim in the name of Jesus' to overcome all of ours. What we need is to pray for peace, acceptance, solution, people to come alongside (it's called being a paraclete) and (most of all) God's presence, inspiration and strength.

ii. People die because that is what we do - it's a human condition! When people ask why 'n' died, especially if they were Christian, I have to explain that:

a. If being Christian meant we didn't die a mortal death, then everyone would be in Church.

b. All the time we get is what we get and we need to live it well for tomorrow we may not be here - so 'carpe diem' (or as my predictive texting once had it: 'Carpet Firm'). Be the best you can be today for tomorrow might not come!

c. Death, and illness, are always with us - now I have prayed and seen healings that can only be regarded as miraculous - and I have prayed and watched people make promises, claims and be disappointed (and wound many). 

We need to pray intelligently, listening to God and praying with Him - not ordering Him to do as we command (the clue is that He is God not a blessed genie!).

The trite -'All you need to do is claim it in God's name - rebuke it and it will be gone!' is great, especially when you can see the reality of it in the witness of the person making that statement - but sadly, too often that is rarely the case. 

Our God is able to do the very best for us at all time and in all situations - but when we place ourselves in certain places, the outcomes are limited and the opportunities for redemption when we have painted ourselves into a corner are few an far between.

Now I really like to remind myself of the 'Pain in the flesh' personified - the Apostle Paul and his words in 2 Cor 2.14 (ish - using the Message): 

'In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God.'

The over-reached and realised eschatological wonderland that is triumphalism is a curse.

It is a curse spoken over those with problems because obviously they name it, claim it and yet never feel it and this begets the question, 'Why can't I live up to being a Christian and stand in the victory?'

It is a curse spoken out against God for when these well-meaning (aren't they always?) people call upon God and nothing happens they make Him out to be like Baal in 1 Kings 18 with the result that others ask where He might be - 'Is He on the toilet or otherwise indisposed?' they mock.

In Jesus the final victory is won, but this doesn't mean we won't have to face battles now. We do have authority but we also have discernment and wisdom and the Word (living and written) and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and these (and more besides) come together to make us a force to be reckoned with, unless we shoot into the air (and wonder why some around us fall)!

One of the biggest buzzes I ever had was to realise that anyone can resist satan but we have even more clout and authority because 'He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world! We have riches in heaven and riches on earth and we need to discern which we store up where. Too often our possessions possess us. Although we stand before those who oppose us, in ALL things we are more than conquerors (and I've buried a number of obviously healed people - they just still had the disease that killed them!) and we indeed will overcome (as the spiritual tells us).

We aren't fatalistic or defeated but neither do we proclaim, or claim, what obviously isn't.

It is OK to be depressed.

It is OK to be ill.

It's even OK to have terminal illness (and I have had some good teachers on this subject for my role is to help people die well).

BUT

Where people make great claims in the lives of others when they don't come near in their own - when they preach about walking in the light when it's obvious they aren't - when they don't see how they don't have a job, or a partner, or a house or a new car or whatever when they are 'a child of the Living God', then they've lost the plot and are in need of a size nine commando boot up the bum!

AND

When they do as for the wrong thing OR tell God what He needs to do OR claims what isn't as if it were in His name - they are wrong, wrong, wrong! (was that clear enough?)

We are indeed in a perpetual victory parade - a parade which I am led to understand relates to the parading of one's defeated foes - and one which has before it an empty cross and a broken and powerless sin (for if the penalty is gone so too is the power!). we live to demonstrate that the hold that sin had over us is no more we lead in triumph (sin behind us and satan humiliated) with Jesus before us (for we know who we follow) for we too are His friends AND servants (hallelujah?).

We have much and many blessing are ours but we need the maturity and understanding (which I don't think the glam Christian Evopersonality types will always make ours - well not unless you send a donation anyway!) to understand what is in the overarching and what is in the now. You can rebuke your headache or you can stop drinking or have an earlier bedtime or stop banging your head against brick walls (real and metaphorical) or just take an analgesic. I'm not against praying - just what, why and how we do it and it hands power to anyone but God, if it wounds others, if it causes others to doubt their salvation or faith than all I can says is this:

STOP IT!

I pray that we will all develop the maturity and discernment to learn when we should be praying for something or claim something as if it is when perhaps that's more about us than God; I pray we will learn to learn that illness, weakness, loneliness and need aren't signs of defeat or oppression - after all what gives us the right to prosperity or healthy lives - we were only promised an eternity of being whole and with Him and if you can read this, it hasn't started yet ;-)

Pax

Creepy Christians and the Media

Am I the only person who finds themselves reaching for the radio to change channel when the 'Creepy Christians' come on? Do you find yourself turned off by the various 'Christian' channels that can be found lurking just about the other 'interest' channels?

Listening to 'Yippee, I'm a Christian radio*' this morning whilst clearing the desk of mail, email, funerals and service longing to hear 'something that's of worth that will bless my heart' I find myself subjected to some well-meaning believer who is binding satan and calling us to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. As the radio calls us to warfare and to oppose all those sinners (which I assume is considered to be anyone who isn't like them perhaps?) I reach out and change the channel to another station. Being locked into the 'religious broadcasting' category I find myself assailed by someone explaining how belief in evolution and disbelief in a young earth leaves me well and truly labelled as an unbeliever. So I hit the button again and find myself listening to a wonderful piece of preaching which once the Amens, hallelujahs and Praise the Lords are done, has almost no content at all. What we have is a bunch of mottos loosely wrapped around a very subjectively interpreted Gospel passage.

I have to say that I long to find some sound teaching and some great Christian music without the froth, the demonology, prosperity and other heresies. Surely there are sone channels out there in the worldwide radio world? There must be some who will believe the Bible rather than the Perrettiesque angels vs demons, send your donation to . . . . stuff.

Stations where the shouting, rebuking of satan and the claiming of loadsa money, health and stuff in the name of Jesus just never happens?

Know a good station for good teaching, worship and an absence of the weirdness that makes for high incidence of Creepy Christians, big hair, flashy clothes and gold teeth?

Let me know and I'll willing give it (or them) a try!

Pax



*name changed to protect the guilty