I noticed as a kid, that every episode of G.I. Joe ends on some kind of cliff hanger to keep you coming back each week. Essentially it’s the same plot with different details over and over. Nothing ever completely gets resolved. The world is still in danger from the evil power of Cobra. So I quit watching. It’s the same reason I quit watching Dragon Ball Z! Sometimes preachers are like this. Every single week, it’s some message couched in high tension that needs to be resolved somehow. One of the ways preachers do this, is through a variation of an ancient heresy called Pelagianism. This is the idea that there’s something you gotta do on your end to help God out if you’re really going to be saved. Here, they put the emPHAsis on the wrong syllABLE and I disagree with them. Everything is gift. Paul asks the congregation at Corinth, “what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Everything is gift, it bears repeating. Whatever we do on our end counts for nothing.
Someone might say, “but James says ‘you have not because you ask not…’” but does this mean we work really hard to finally get something from God? Besides, Paul says, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good purpose.” So even our asking is first prompted by the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes preachers want to motivate their congregations to get out there and do something for the Lord! But I think they end up putting the cart in front of the horse. It seems to me that any good actions on our part, come from God’s prior gift to us. “We love, because he first loved us.” 1 John 4; “God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.” Romans 2; “God’s grace”... “trains us to say no to ungodliness (stuff God doesn’t like)...” -Titus 2. Let me illustrate the emphasis on gift this way: Let’s say you are out in the middle of the ocean, drowning and dying, but suddenly the Coast Guard shows up in a speed boat. A sailor throws out a life line and you grab onto it. The sailor hauls you aboard and you’re safe. Do you stand there afterwards and say, “whew, I’m glad I had the good sense to grab that line.” No way, you got rescued. We don’t lay emphasis on our own actions even though they were technically involved. We know that without the efforts of the Coast Guard, we’d be dead. It’s the same way with everything in Christianity. It’s all gift.
If you want something from God, simply ask for it. The only caveats I see are: it has to be in the realm of God’s will (1 John 5, and see the rest of what James writes), You must “Do unto others…” (Mt 7:7-12), and forgive people (Mk 11:25). Jesus tells us to ask and keep on asking and the promise, is that you’ll receive. Stop trying to get God to like you more. He already liked you when you were his enemy.
If your pastor’s sermons keep making you feel like you’ll never be enough, or that there’s still something you really ought to be doing before God will finally answer you, or bless you or some “breakthrough” (they usually keep it vague) -every week!; you are not trusting Jesus. You’re trusting your own efforts instead of His efforts on your behalf. You get to walk into the throne room of God and ask (Eph. 3:12/Heb 4:16). This is not because you finally got it right, it’s because Jesus got it right FOR you. Christianity leaves us each totally bankrupt and in need. We need to, and get to, ask for help at every turn. The problem is that sometimes we want to earn our own keep, so to speak, so that we don’t have to rely on gift. But God has locked us all into this situation. Our own efforts count for nothing, just ask. Aren’t you tired yet? Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my burden is easy and my yoke is light.” But if your preacher keeps on saying, “hang on, there are some conditions to this…”and “try a little harder...” it ought to make you at least a little angry that someone’s trying to sell you what Jesus is giving out for free as gift.
