Here’s part 4 of my review on Six Prayers God Always Answers, by Mark Herringshaw and Jennifer Schuchmann.
I remember in high school, the whole skateboarding craze was firing back up, and many of my peers jumped whole-heartedly into the attending subculture. The problem was, a lot of my peers who went for the skater look, who talked the skater talk, couldn’t ride board any better than I could (read: not at all).
We had a special name for those types. We called them “posers,” and there’s nothing more embarrassing than for a poser to be found. In the spiritual realm, we have a name for a similar type of being, we call them hypocrites.
I though it was funny that the authors quoted Tolkien in the chapter when talking about deceptive appearances. “All that is gold does not glitter,” the wizard Gandalf said, talking about the fact that what is of worth does not always look like what you expect. I was reminded about Los on his blog mentioning someone visiting at his church talking about that “tattooed worship leader as the lowest common denominator” (or something like that). Isn’t it amazing how we judge?
So many times, we (a collective Christian “we”) look around and either consciously or unconsciously try to find someone who we perceive to be of lower spiritual state than ourselves in order to make it easier to ignore our own spiritual failings. We question whether or not that murderer on death row really did “find Jesus” or not, and in our deep subconscious we probably hope he/she didn’t because that would make them just as forgiven as we are.
How’s that hit you?
Churches are full of hypocrites, and thank God they are. Where else should all the hypocrites be but sitting in the pew and filling the altar each week, dealing with their sins in authenticity before God. I loved some of the statements of religious poseurs the authors pointed out:
We tell others there is a religious way to do things.
We don’t decide where to go to college based on factual differences between schools; we “pray about it.”
We choose one job over another not because of the likelihood of pay increases and promotion opportunities but because “we were called.”
We say that we pursue opportunities not because they looked like a good idea but because “the Lord opened the door.”
Are these statements sincere or just churchspeak?
Now of course, only the person who says it and God Himself know the real truth about the sincerity of such statements. No doubt some really mean what they say, but it seems far too easy to speak this way around fellow Christ-followers, and another way outside the church walls.
In a prayer life, God is not only looking for sincerity, but he is also looking for accompanying evidence. Our pastor even spoke about this idea recently, in that if you look in Scripture, when Jesus asked people to pray that the Lord would send workers into the “harvest,” in the very next breath He then turned to those same people and told them to get up and get going. The very people who prayed for the fulfillment of the need were the ones called upon to fulfill that need.
God doesn’t want to hear faux prayers for show—all action, no substance. But He also refuses to hear prayers that are all words and no action.
How’s that hit you?
Contrast the life of David with the life of Saul. Both were very flawed men who made some major mistakes in their lives. What was the difference between Saul and David? David actually confronted, sorrowfully repented of, and completely turned from his sins. Saul sought to excuse them away and still get forgiveness.
The main point of prayer for God, and for us, is the relationship between us and Him. God wants our undivided attention when we pray.
When prayer plays a double role, God won’t be had.
Isn’t it amazing how we try to fool an omniscient God?
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