Understanding the magnitude, grandeur, majesty, power, authority, and omnipotence of the God we serve should, by all accounts, make us see prayer and the ability to commune with Him in a whole new light. When we get a glimpse of who God is, we are eager to spend more time with Him. We see it as the honor that it is, as the priceless grace He bestows upon those He calls His own, and not as a chore, a burden, or something we would rather skip on a given day if we had the choice.
You’re not calling customer support and getting someone with
a thick Indian accent on the other end who doesn’t understand English all that
well. You are having dialogue with the God of heaven, the Creator of all that
is seen and unseen, the One who spoke the universe into being. That reality
alone should make us hunger for time alone with Him. It should make us prioritize
prayer in such a way that we allow nothing to stand in the way of having that
experience, not once in a while, but daily, even multiple times a day.
How is it that people get more tongue-tied and starry-eyed
when they see an actor, an athlete, or a favorite musician in real life than
they do about the prospect of speaking one-on-one with the God of the universe?
Why is it people will stand in line, brave the cold, and pay their hard earned
money to watch grown men throw a ball at each other while others are trying to
tackle them to the ground, but when discussion of having prayer time comes
around, they’re always busy, have prior commitments, or just can’t fit it into
the schedule?
Men prioritize what they treasure, and treasure what they
prioritize. That in itself is an indictment against much of today’s church,
because what we are prioritizing is anything other than the simple practices,
such as consistent prayer, that are proven to grow and build us. They are deemed
too dull, obsolete, old-fashioned, and outdated, but try as they might to put a
new spin on a proven practice, their results are demonstrably lacking.
If you can’t match the success of those who came before you
by doing something new, then perhaps it’s time to swallow your pride and go
back to the drawing board, acknowledging that different isn’t always better,
and some things that have worked for millennia have stood the test of time because
there is nothing that can replace them that offer the same results.
When we come before God in prayer, we must be fully aware of
who it is we are praying to. God’s people perish for lack of knowledge, but that
knowledge has everything to do with the nature and character of God, and not
whether planetary alignments bring about greater natural disasters. It is the
knowledge of Him that God is referring to. His people perish because they do
not know Him, and the truth of this statement is ever more apparent with each
passing day.
How can one place their full faith and trust in someone they
do not know? How can someone serve and obey someone they only have a tangential
understanding of? Men wander from truth, return to the darkness, and dismiss
God’s commands because they have no fear of the Lord. They have no fear of the
Lord because the reality of who He is has not crystallized in their minds and
hearts.
Knowing who you’re dealing with in any given situation will
determine the actions you will undertake. We’ve all encountered the videos
where fake tough guys eventually run into a real tough guy, not knowing that
the person they’re disrespecting, antagonizing, and trying to pick a fight with,
punches men in the face for a living. They find out soon enough when they go too
far, and that seemingly mild-mannered individual who was just trying to mind
his own business snaps, and they’re staring at the clouds from the fetal
position, not knowing how they got there.
When you show more respect to the night shift manager at
Walmart than you do to God, who sent His only begotten Son that you may be reconciled
to Him, it reveals the limited understanding you have of Him.
The modern-day church narrative of God being your buddy, your
pal, or some grandfatherly figure just waiting on you to visit so He can spoil
you with candies and treats until you get bored with Him has done incalculable damage
within the body. The fear of the Lord has become a rare thing, and knowing that
it is the beginning of wisdom, the level of ignorance is no surprise.
Although we have easier access to everything under the sun,
we are the most intellectually stunted generation ever to walk the earth, and the
next generation will be even more so. Knowing next to nothing yet thinking we
know everything is a toxic brew that leaves us unteachable, unmalleable, and
beyond correction. Even when God declares and commands that we pursue Him with
all our hearts, and that He will accept nothing less than our all, we wave it
off as though it were a mere suggestion, or that His command did not extend to
us.
That’s for everyone else. We’re special, though. The little
people need to spend time in prayer. The peons need to spend time in the Word.
We are beyond all that, don’t you know? All we have to do is hum along to
Hillsong for a few minutes every other week, and we’re good.
It’s no mystery why the spiritual condition of the
contemporary church is where it is. It’s not as though we can’t piece together the
clues and come to a reasonable conclusion as to why this has occurred. We have strayed
from the tried and true precepts of the gospel in search of other things, newer
things, different things, and are now coming to realize that there is no
replacing the pillars and foundational tenets of what is required for spiritual
growth.
Posted on 3 May 2025 | 11:29 am
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