More than conquerors, what, without even trying?

Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash

There they were, the praying people of the church, praying up a storm, exhorting God because they knew He liked it. They were saying things like, ‘We will claim this and that and it will be ours!’ And, ‘All this is ours because we believe in Jesus, and because we believe in Jesus He will give us anything we claim is ours in this Kingdom (of ours)!’

And they believed stoically in their doctrine. They loved it when God answered their prayers, because God answered every prayer of theirs. Because they were special to God; they were exclusive, true, authentic, the best-of-the-best Christians.

They knew they had the anointing, whereas others didn’t; those that suffered needlessly, because for some reason God didn’t answer their prayers. And why did God favour these Christians over the others; well, of course, they weren’t sinners anymore. Obvious, isn’t it?

Somehow God sanctified them to such a degree that their obedience was shining. God was so proud of them. These Christians were powerful Christians. These Christians belonged to churches that grew the fastest, had the most entertaining preachers (I mean, why do churches employ boringly biblical speakers), and had the most altar calls and conversions, slick “processes” for dealing with new people, even the best coffee! They were so strong in evangelism they didn’t even need to bother with discipleship.

These churches knew they had God’s favour because money just kept rolling in and couldn’t their preachers plead a such a convincing case to give — the Holy Spirit convicting them through the preaching, that, with such love, they regularly gave even beyond their means! ‘What more do you want?’ they would say. ‘Now that you have the Kingdom, and because we bless you so much, we can have your money. And, of course, you know that we need it for our highly anointed (i.e. very successful) ministry that reaches the lost on God’s behalf. You know very well that God needs us and we can only do this work if you give to us “sacrificially”. You know that your giving is going well when it begins to hurt and you know that you’ll need to go without. If it’s for God, then it must be right.’

Now, let’s get back to this wrong approach to prayer. I mean, what kind of faith do some Christians have to believe that God doesn’t answer their prayers (i.e. demands) in the affirmative? Don’t they know that they can talk God around? We can, you know!

What do they mean when they say that they suffer well for the gospel? And they have the gall to tell us that the Bible is literally littered with stories of suffering; godly people suffering? It cannot be! No, we have the power of Christ, and that power is ours, now, and all we need to do is claim it in the Name of Jesus — to say to somebody, ‘Be healed!’ and it shall be. We have the anointing!

How is it that these people tell us that they have the real power, and that the real power of Jesus is in powerlessness? It defies logic! How is it that these people pretend to be joyful and at peace, even in their suffering? That’s not a gospel we can believe — it’s far too costly — a “good” God is good, period. These people even seem to be madly able to endure. Doesn’t sound like Christian faith to me.

Why do they “cherry pick” verses like James 1:2-4 and 1 Peter 3:14, and why do they continually point us to Corinthians, Job, Lamentations, the lament psalms, Ecclesiastes, etc. I mean, who really believes that considering it pure joy in our suffering is a good idea? Or, blessed are those who suffer? Or, that God gives, but that He also takes away?

How is it that people who claim to be Christian and suffer chronic or terminal illness and continue to believe they are being obedient? And to make matters worse, they even appear to be obedient! They keep saying that they are sinners, that they are not perfect, that no Christian is perfect. Where do they get taught this nonsense? And they keep making such a big deal of humility. Why?

Don’t they know they already have the victory! Don’t they know that Christ didn’t die that we would have to suffer! There is power in the anointing, and you either have the anointing or you don’t. It’s like being a Spirit-filled believer. You either are or you are not. Only the real Christians are Spirit-filled.

And God confirms to our hearts that we are the elect of God.

***

Yes, this is satire. This article was brought to you by Matthew 7:21-23.