The Bible is not a self-help book.
God is not a motivational speaker.
Worshiping with a community of believers on Sunday is not supposed to be focused on giving you the right kind of energy to start your week. It’s not about you. Worship is about our Triune God alone.
If you are cherry picking verses to make yourself feel better, stop! Read the whole chapter, if not the whole book. Get the context.
If you pray with the mindset that God is here to make all your dreams come true as if you were blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, you are operating from a misguided spiritual space peddled to you by a snake oil preacher promising you that the gospel is about prosperity.
If you are doing and believing what I am saying is contrary to Christian formation, you are like a newborn baby drinking its mother’s milk. If you have called yourself a Christ follower for some time, it’s time to dig deeper. Stop looking at scripture for a quick verse to add a spring to your step. Stop letting your spiritual growth be measured by how much your heart strings are pulled during worship. Pray with adoration, confession, thanksgiving…and then…make your requests known to God.
Our God is Triune. Holy above all. Creator. King. God is to be worshiped. God sent his son to redeem us for the sake of God’s steadfast love. God desires a broken and contrite heart. God wants us to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. God’s Son taught us how. The Holy Spirit empowers us to act on this calling.
If you are praying to God for more wealth, think about giving what you have away. Tithe. If you have a home, a cottage, luxury vehicles and a healthy vacation and emergency fund, I can almost promise you that praying for your wealth to increase is not a prayer that will be answered until you have been given a clear vision for how you will serve the community around you with the money you are blessed with.
Scripture is meant to reflect God’s hand at work throughout the entirety of human history. It is meant from beginning to end to point us to Christ as savior of the world through sacrificing his life, via death and resurrection that is big enough to cover the sins of all and redeem all. Scripture is God’s plan to shape and mold us into God’s likeness. Sometimes that shaping and molding is painful and certainly doesn’t feel very touchy feely and good vibes.
Let the enormity of scripture marinate in your soul. Worship the Lord with awe and wonder. Relish the presence of the Holy Spirit. Live the way Jesus did. Care about the people Christ cared about.
And remember that the world is watching. If you are skipping over the gospels in favor of the writings of Paul so that you have more ammunition to judge others and more opportunities to ignore context and cherry pick verses, you are getting it wrong and the world sees it. They see you instead of the Christ whom you should be sharing.
Live like Jesus and people will see God.
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