A CALL TO DIE BOOK - Day 19
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DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning,<br />
your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure<br />
devotion to Christ.<br />
(II Cor 11:3)<br />
When the serpent came to Eve in the Garden, he told her that she<br />
could have it all. God had given her clear instructions not to eat from<br />
a certain tree, but that, the serpent insisted, was a silly rule. She could<br />
have a rich relationship with God and the ability to do whatever she<br />
wanted. She was wrong, and it cost her.<br />
- We are incredibly self-centered people. We focus on our wants<br />
and our needs and our goals and our dreams and our time and our<br />
everything else. When we become Christians, this self centeredness<br />
dies hard. Very hard. Unfortunately, some Christian‘churches and<br />
speakers reinforce this focus on self by promising that we can have<br />
God and whatever we want. It sounds like this:<br />
If you trust God, he’ll pave the way to your success. If you walk with<br />
Jesus, he’ll give you the circumstances you always wanted.<br />
If you only believe God, he’ll bless you with financial wealth.<br />
If you trust Christ, you’ll have perfect rest.<br />
Has God promised those things? Well, yes and no. He has promised<br />
that if we are absolutely sold out to him, we will experience blessings<br />
beyond our wildest dreams. But if we love him with all our hearts, the<br />
greatest blessing will be knowing and loving him. We won’t care that<br />
much about earthly blessings, will we?<br />
The problem is not success, peace, wealth, and rest. Certainly, God<br />
gives those to some of us. The problem is when those things climb up<br />
to the center of our hearts and compete with us for our affections.<br />
Those gifts are not wrong-unless they take God’s rightful place in our<br />
lives. At that point, we begin using God to get what we want instead<br />
of worshipping him. We demand that God gives us these things and<br />
we are bitterly disappointed when he doesn’t. God isn’t interested in<br />
being used to fulfill our selfish goals. He is interested in being our Lord<br />
and us putting him first.<br />
How can we tell if we want these things too much? Here are four<br />
ways:<br />
1. What do we pray about?<br />
If our prayers are primarily centered on getting more of God’s<br />
blessings, then we may be using God to get what we want. The<br />
prayers Paul wrote out in his letters are full of praise and thanksgiving.<br />
They are full of God, not man. When Paul prays, he asks for insight into<br />
the depths of God’s love, for wisdom to know his will, and the strength<br />
to carry it out.<br />
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DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
Paul doesn’t first bring a grocery list of wants to God for his personal<br />
gain. Requests are an important part of his prayers, but these requests<br />
are in the context of praise and even the petitions focus on doing the<br />
will of God, not pleasing ourselves.<br />
2. How do we respond when someone has more than we do?<br />
One of the best indicators of the condition of the human heart is<br />
comparison. When we see someone get a new car, new clothes, a<br />
new job, or an athletic scholarship, are we sincerely glad for them,<br />
or do we smile and pat them on the back but think, “She doesn’t<br />
deserve that. I do!”? When our hearts are full of Christ, we have<br />
our treasure in abundance. We don’t long for more stuff. If we get<br />
something new, that’s great. If not, it’s no big deal. Envy and jealousy<br />
will eat us alive. They are rooted in the lust to have more, and<br />
comparison is their fertile soil.<br />
3. Do we get angry when God doesn’t give us what we want?<br />
If we have a”God-and” demand, we are sure we deserve whatever<br />
anyone else has-and a little bit more. When we don’t get what we<br />
demand, we get mad. That anger may only simmer if we are good at<br />
masking it, but if we are immature or volatile, we may explode in our<br />
anger at God.<br />
4. Do we feel sorry for ourselves when God doesn’t come through the<br />
way we wanted? Instead of thankfulness, our mouths spit out selfpity.<br />
“Why me? Why is it always me? Doesn’t God care about me<br />
anymore?” Feelings of disappointment are normal when things don’t<br />
go as we expected, but that can drive us to God to say, “Lord, what<br />
do you want to teach me from this?” That plea is a long way from,<br />
“Lord, I can’t believe you let this happen to me!”<br />
A “God and” perspective, trying to use God to get our wants met,<br />
quickly leads to a “God, but” reaction. When we are focused on our<br />
wants and our needs, we find lots of things get in the way, including<br />
obeying God. When he calls us to follow him, we reply, “Lord, but<br />
you don’t understand. Serving you that way doesn’t fit in with my<br />
hope of being successful and popular. I’ll wait for you to ask me to do<br />
something else.” But “something else” never comes. When we insist on<br />
God being on our terms, he refuses to play that game. We drift away<br />
in our anger and self-pity, blaming God for what he didn’t do for us.<br />
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DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
‘Do you remember the parable of the four soils, and do you remember<br />
what choked the life out of the seedlings in the soil ‘that had thorns<br />
and weeds? It was the deceitfulness of riches and the worries of the<br />
world. That’s exactly what we are talking about here: when wealth,<br />
popularity, comfort, rest, and entertainment, compete with the<br />
growing seedling of God’s word in your life. What do you do with<br />
weeds in the garden? You identify them (don’t yank out the flowers!)<br />
and pull them out by the roots. That’s what you do with spiritual weeds<br />
too. Believers who have walked with God for a while face an ther,<br />
more subtle “God and” problem. They sometimes confuse devotion<br />
to Christ with Christian disciplines of prayer, Bible study, serving, and<br />
giving. Those are meant to open our eyes and draw us close to Christ<br />
himself, not become a substitute for him. Prayer doesn’t save us. Bible<br />
study is not our Lord. Serving and giving don’t fill the deepest holes<br />
in our hearts. Christ does.These activities take on their direction and<br />
meaning if, and only if, they are focused on knowing and loving Jesus.<br />
At one point, the religious leaders argued with Jesus about who he<br />
was and why he came. They were terrific students of the scriptures, but<br />
they missed the real message there. Jesus told them, “You diligently<br />
study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess<br />
eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you<br />
refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40).<br />
The message is clear: When you pray, don’t just go through the<br />
motions and hope God is happy with the effort. Look for Jesus. Listen.<br />
When you study the Bible, look for Jesus in each thought and each<br />
verse, and talk to him about what you find. When you worship, sing to<br />
Jesus himself, not for those around you. When you serve others, serve<br />
as if you were serving the Lord Jesus himself.<br />
I think all of us have to wrestle with “God and” conflicts in our hearts<br />
from time to time. They are harder to identify than outright sin because<br />
our selfishness is mingled with Christian lingo and practices. We may<br />
look just fine on the outside while we are practicing idolatry on the<br />
inside. Simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ are developed when<br />
the light of God’s Spirit shines on that conflict and says, “This is not the<br />
way, my child.”<br />
At that moment, we have a choice. The decision is not just one of<br />
right and wrong; it is one of loyalty or disloyalty. When the prodigal<br />
son came home and confessed his sin to his father, he was welcomed<br />
warmly back into a rich, intimate, affectionate relationship. I can<br />
imagine that his love for his father and the simplicity of his loyalty to<br />
him grew exponentially that day.<br />
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DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
When God shines his light on the hidden crevices of your soul and<br />
shows you that a blessing or a discipline is competing with your<br />
affection for Jesus, don’t be shocked. Say, “Yes, Lord. I agree. I want<br />
to be completely loyal to you and you alone.” He will be honored by<br />
that loyalty to him.<br />
-Be still. Listen to what God is saying to you.<br />
1. What are some ways we use God to get what we want instead of<br />
loving and serving him?<br />
2. Look at the evidences of “God and” in our lives. Do you see any of<br />
these in your life? Explain:<br />
-Self-focused prayers:<br />
-Comparison:<br />
-Anger when we don’t get what we expect God to give us:<br />
-Self-pity:<br />
3. What are some reasons we may let Bible study, prayer, serving, and<br />
giving compete with our loyalty to Christ? Why do we get confused<br />
about the role of these things?<br />
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DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
4. Does it make a difference whether you see this idolatry as loyalty<br />
and disloyalty to Christ himself instead of merely right and wrong?<br />
5. Describe what it means for you to have a “simple and pure<br />
devotion to Christ”:<br />
6. Read Luke 15:11-32. Think about each paragraph, then use it as a<br />
guide as you pray.<br />
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DAY <strong>19</strong>: “GOD-AND”<br />
Memorize: Say Psalm 115:1, 17-18 aloud. How can you apply this<br />
passage today?<br />
Lord, today you are calling me to die to selfish desires by:<br />
You are calling me to obey in these areas:<br />
You are calling me to intimacy with you by:<br />
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