Within the last five days I have had the same conversation with three different people. At the heart if it is the same problem that has always plagued man since the dawn of time. We all want to approach God on our own terms and when we are not blessed by God the way we expect to be, we then want to blame God for not answering our prayers. Too many people have what I refer to as “buffet bar Christianity.” As a result, their faith is hollow, their prayers unanswered, and their walk with God unsatisfying. Could it be that too many have adopted a dangerous philosophy when it comes to their faith?
Don’t get me wrong, I love buffet bars – whether its Shoney’s, Ryan’s, Golden Corral, or one of the local Chinese ones – I enjoy being able to choose the foods I love eating. We all do it to some extent – as we walk down the buffet bar, we load our plates with our favorites and ignore the things we do not like. Often times, we try to do the same thing with our faith. We only want the things we think are the best parts of Christianity and the relationship with God that it brings: blessings, joy, peace, contentment, and happiness. We all want to skip past the more difficult offerings that Christianity has: perseverance, submission, trials, tribulation, hardship, growing pains, and a few problems that only go away with prayer and fasting.
It actually surprises us that God does not answer our prayers or does not give us what we think we are entitled to have as Christians. The problem is not that we are Christians; the problem is that we want to approach God on our terms. God even reminds us through the writings of his prophet Isaiah: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD (Isaiah 55:8). Even Solomon, often considered the wisest of all the kings, recorded a dire warning for us: There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12). No wonder why so many of our expectations we have towards God are met unanswered. We attempt to make God conform to our faith when it should be us conforming to his perfect will. In fact, through the writings of the prophet Isaiah, God offers us the chance to do that very thing: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isaiah 1:18).
Even Jesus taught the exact same concept during his earthly ministry; Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6). It should not come as a great surprise that Jesus also taught those who followed him that I [Jesus] am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture (John 10:9). Anyone that asks of the Father must go through the Lord Jesus Christ first. It is through the blood of Christ that ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s (I Corinthians 6:20) and where according to the apostle Paul, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (Romans 12:1). Contrast this with the lesson Jesus taught during his earthly ministry, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber (John 10:1).
While almost every Christian would agree that these verses are primarily dealing with the lost and then the debt we owe to the Lord Jesus Christ after accepting his plan of salvation as our only hope of entering Heaven, there is also another application that can be made. How can we, as Christians, expect to approach the throne of God through our prayers, when we have neglected our other Christian responsibilities? How can we expect to be blessed or carried through a dark valley on our life’s path when we don’t study our Bibles, we count going to church as our “time with God,” we don’t seek him in the daily affairs of our life, and we ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives? If we expect to feel the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we must live our lives in a manner that is acceptable to God; we have to be sincere in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
