Give God the Glory

I did this, I did that, I will do, I can do. When will it al end and when will we take ideas of being in control of anything and toss them in the trash. Not to be a Universalist, I would say we choose our destiny even though we don’t control our destiny. (Not sure why I just wrote that or even sure of what it might mean. It may be a condition of my past teaching, something relatively new, or a combination but I do not believe our prayers for the healing of us or another person have anything to do with the healing or non-healing taking place. I also believe the words; “God has answered our prayers” is effectively stealing the glory from God.

Yes, I know we have been told to pray on all things, to make our desires known, and to pray with the expectation of our prayers being answered. Misunderstood, I’ve also been told several times how sad it is that I don’t believe prayer does any good or simply that I don’t believe in prayer. Not believing in prayer, would be the same for me as saying I don’t believe in God. None of this is true and I definitely believe God brings healing to people. I’ve seen in my own life where there can be no answer but the intervention of God in what has taken place. My problem comes with the thought of some who think my prayer might be the reason behind the healing and often, it may not be just the prayer I offer, but also the prayers of many others praying.

I sincerely believe we do incredible damage to the Christian walk of others by teaching them our prayers can/will bring about healing. Almost every day I hear people tell others to lift it up to God and it will go away. If not this statement, I hear people asking for the prayers of others to make pain go away or healing take place. While I can find and fully accept many positive aspects of these prayers, we teach something I am convinced is the manipulation of what prayer actually does by Satan to create doubt and frustration with God. I believe we are teaching a lie and when “apparently” abandoned without healing, the faith of the individual often takes a hit, as they feel betrayed by the promise of God. This “promise of God” is actually little more than the wishful thinking of man superimposed on the promise of God.

I was once foolish enough to buy into the attempts of men and women to explain why healing did not take place. The idea I have been told most often growing up in the church, is that God always answers prayer but sometimes His answer is NO! If this does not do the job, then we were always taught to pray, “your will be done and not mine,” or the basic “cop out,” “if it is your will.” If we are taught something long enough, it becomes the truth. I currently believe two things about prayer. First, all prayer has a positive quality, which includes not only the person praying but also a person being prayed for and so I would encourage everyone to keep praying for others. Second, is how I believe we know the will of God and the prayers offered within His will, will ALWAYS happen as promised by God. Example: We know it is the will of God for us to avoid and say no to sins that challenge us each day. If I am a drunkard, and I am going to be around a lot of alcohol, I can acknowledge to God how I know it is His will that I not be falling off of my promise to remain sober and how I need His strength to get me through the day without falling. I have tried these prayers myself and encouraged others to see if the armor of God does not surround them when praying like this to the point of not even being mildly challenged in difficult situations. I am almost totally convinced that our fall back into any sin wanting control over us is due to us not taking the challenge to God on a regular basis and simply falling prey to Satan because the “shielding” power of the Holy Spirit has been dropped.

The basis for my problem accepting the most common believe concerning prayer comes from what I have to believe in order to accept the common belief. I have to first believe God is a respecter of persons. Yes, God likes some people better than others or the prayers of some are simply better worded or more fervent to change His mind. I’ll let the those holding the most common believe tell the young couple watching their baby die a painful death how they had not prayed enough for their baby as they watch the baby in the next bed scooped up and loved with a healing and the constant statements claiming, “our prayers have been answered!” I can’t believe how cruel we make this time for others because we have set them up to question God. Hearing how the death of your child was God’s will has to be one of the most torturous things we can say and as I near the end of these thoughts, I want to say again, I believe in prayer and also how it is very powerful.

I believe God heals because it is His plan in action! He is doing something He needs done and the only way it is going to happen is by stopping Satan dead in his tracks and over turning the “ruler of this world.” God doesn’t like one or the other better and the prayers from one group or the other are not better. Simply put, for God’s will to be done healing must take place. When this is done, let us not be so quick to take the glory for ourselves, but instead, give glory to God because His will is being done on earth as it is in Heaven! (Out of context I know but the thought coming to mind)

I didn’t spend time talking about all the things I believe are accomplished in prayer, my beliefs on why we were told to pray, or the promised power we share when praying in the will of God but possibly I will share these thoughts at a later time when I’ve focused away from what I consider is a harmful attitude towards prayer.

The Church of Christ Miracle

The title on these thoughts might seem a bit ridiculous but I grew up in this fellowship and was taught the age of miracles was over when the apostles were gone. Through the ages I believe the Holy Spirit has continued to work miracles for God’s people. This has happened even though our leaders and those writing commentaries on the Bible have declared otherwise to those of us with less understanding than themselves.

I was sitting in a chapel gathering of our students recently when this title came into my thoughts and the prompt came from watching the young children, who were being trained to lead a small short worship time to God. Watching the little boys get up to read from the Bible or lead a prayer, I suddenly realized my fellowship has always been this way. I even had a flashback to an email I received recently describing how our young men led a short devotional service for the chapel honoring our seniors.

When I think back on the years I’ve experienced growing up in the Churches of Christ, I can remember programs and special classes to train the young boys to be Christian men and eventually grow into church leaders capable of preaching, praying, leading songs, distributing communion trays, etc. Basically, as I look back, they were being taught how to “run/rule” the church organization. Some might think I’ve forgotten the little girls but with the little girls, the miracle is realized and mentioned shortly.

In every case I’ve known, the instructions to the boys dealt with the mechanics of what I now consider “artificial” worship, much like what was taking place in the time of Amos and focused on getting things right. To lead a prayer, the young man was instructed to include comments regarding care of the sick, the ability or leadership of the elders, thankfulness for Jesus, thankfulness for those meeting “at this place,” and other suggestions. We were also reminded to ask for the forgiveness of sins and officially close the prayer with, “in Jesus name, Amen.”

I’m surprised the thoughts I have now never entered my mind because there have been several occasions when hearing someone pray, I think something like, “ I wish I could pray like that, or wow, it is easy to tell they have a real relationship with God.”

Having written these words, I am convinced our efforts in the church to train our children up, have possibly been more heavily influenced by the “father of lies” instead of the God we believe sent His son for us. We have been teaching the mechanics of man made traditions of worship and passing them off as the true nature of what God wants from us.  We have been teaching a system of worship void of the heart where we place our trust in the confidence of doing things right.

When my fellowship took the time to teach our young girls, a different approach was taken. They were not taught the “proper” way to lead a prayer, singing or communion. They were not taught to organize their thoughts for a great message preached to the masses. Our young girls were taught to be SUBMISSIVE. They were taught to see others as more important than themselves (meaning men) but becoming a trait in most relationships. They were taught to be caregivers, kindly helping those in need. Our girls were taught to sacrifice their desires for others. There was a constant reminder on the need to control their behavior and to value purity.

When I began placing these thoughts on paper (yes pencil and paper because I like to review my rough draft when going to computer), I was only thinking of the irony we face trying to do God’s will as we work through the design of men. We want our children to grow up and become men and women of god and yet we use our traditional view of what this looks like in their training. In the beginning of this writing, I started by thinking the Church of Christ Miracle was how our women often grow up to be the most God like in their relationship with God and doing so without all of the training and opportunities given to our young boys. They learn to develop an intense and real relationship with God completely from the heart and many of the “trained” men simply develop a superficial relationship of serving God through various acts of man-made worship on Sunday. The miracle I considered was how the Holy Spirit used our concept of training proper “Church of Christ Women” to actually become women of God.

My question coming to mind now, is should we not throw out the gender based boy/girl roles WE created and teach our young men the lessons we traditionally teach the young girls? Then, it may be possible to grow up a generation of men and women of God. The true Church of Christ miracle is not what I started with but, instead, the reality of any young man growing up and developing a true, from the heart, relationship with God. What a wonderful miracle that we have any Men of God!

Shall We Listen to Jesus or Man?

Is it not written of Jesus telling us he would send the Holy Spirit to guide us in all things? Is it also not written of Jesus claiming some put their trust in the scripture than the one revealed in scripture? In my heritage, I grew up being taught the Bible is the authority over our lives and if we wished to have the promise of eternal life given to us at judgment, all we needed was to be found in the Bible. Failure to follow the Bible accurately enough would result in the eternal torture of hell. Read, study, and memorize so that we would miss nothing and not be trapped into the deceit of Satan.

Actually, I now believe Satan has used and continues to use our Bible to place our trust, even today in scripture rather than the one revealed in scripture. I still hear religious leaders encouraging us to spend time daily with the Word of God (meaning the Bible) and while the Bible is a great place to begin, I would suggest the actual Word of God is much more than the Bible and actually the very embodiment of Jesus! Did John not say, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God?” Where is our trust or should we say, “Satan get behind me?”

I would encourage my readers not to read much “into” my statements as I claim now to place much more of an equal importance of the Bible and the writings of writers like my current favorite, All Maxey, who offers weekly reflections to thousands of readers. I don’t mind saying I believe he and others (I’ve told him as much) are inspired writers for God in every sense of the word as we use it when referring to the writers in the Bible like Paul and the apostles. As I’ve written before, I’m surprised my fellowship ever accepted the Bible as we have it today because it was compiled hundreds of years following the time when my fellowship claimed direct interaction by God ceased.

I’ve often been accused of having to be right and my present answer is yes, but different than you might think. I believe our elevation of the Bible to “supreme” authority comes from our human desire/nature to have control over our own salvation in a legal “right” sense. We can’t accept two people being right before God if they believe differently on any number of subjects. Human nature, the one controlled by Satan would have us believe salvation is only available to those accurately knowing, understanding, and following the Bible and it is always “my” understanding because the tow of us can’t possibly be right.

Looking outside of the text to the one revealed in the text, I now believe our “rightness” before God demands the identical application of forgiveness from Jesus rather than the identical identity of the one being forgiven. Yes, I believe the only way to the Father is through Jesus. What I refuse to believe (at least right now) is that I or any other man or woman has the power to do any more in the process than point others to the one revealed. They don’t need the accuracy of our message, but rather the accuracy of Jesus forgiveness through the cross and the decision of God to forgive with the blood of His son.

In conclusion and to focus back on the title of these thoughts, I believe the Bible is the work of inspired men to have written down the things revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. I believe other men and women throughout history have taken the time to reveal things via the Holy Spirit and if not for the “official” compiling of the Bible, we would look at all of them with the same weight of belief. We would allow the Holy Spirit to work through us and verify whether what we read is of God or the evil one. I am fully convinced the majority of us have kicked the presence of the Holy Spirit living right inside of us to a “back burner” with no real purpose in our lives and yet we can only find true enjoyment in our Christian lives by allowing the Holy Spirit complete control of our lives and putting the Bible secondary in our lives with the rest of religious writings.

Jesus used the phrase, “it is written,” and I now wonder if there was a greater reasoning for this than we give credit. We have been taught to ask, “Where exactly did you get that from?” We want to know the exact book, chapter and verse for your enlightenment or it is not valid. I happen to know it is written that King Ramses could not have died from Tuberculosis because it was not discovered until 1832. To make my point, what is written does not have to be accurate and the discernment me have through the spirit will easily make the wiles of Satan as ridiculous as this statement. The Holy Spirit is not going to let us be led away to the loss of salvation!

Why do we have the Bible and other religious writings? Answer: To reveal what the Holy Spirit is speaking to the inspired writer and hopefully open the eyes and hearts of someone needing Jesus revealed? Why do we have the Holy Spirit? Answer: We have the Holy Spirit to teach us all things and confirm the righteousness of God and our place in His eternal plan.

One short after word is that yes, I understand how my fellowship accepted the Bible compiled after so many years as the final word from God and the last interaction of God with man. It is all wrapped up in one scripture I was taught as a little boy. 1 Corinthians 13:10 “When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part…” Yes, I was taught the Bible was perfect with no errors. Of course, when we place our trust in something so perfect, there can’t possibly be anyone who will see even one statement different from the rest of “us who are now perfect in God’s eyes!” We must be identical to trust the Bible for our salvation.  Better yet, let’s all place our trust in the ONE REVEALED!