Is God your slot machine?

Is God your slot machine?

If he is then we really don’t even have the faintest understanding of how amazing, preeminant, almighty, powerful and loving God is. When you pray, how do you pray? Do you give up a prayer token and wait and see what happens?

I’ve caught myself praying such prayers in the past like: “Lord I pray that I get this job or that we are finically looked after for life, or that we are safe on our travels, or that I could have a perfect day today,  the list goes on.” We regard God to be like Santa with a bagful of goodies to be given when asked. Is asking for things the only reason for our prayers? Why do we pray like this and not like this?

Habakkuk 3:2-19 
LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

Firstly I believe its because we have become very individualistic. Culture today is me focused. In prayer we can sometimes hope for our circumstances to become better instead of  asking God to alter us through them, to change us for his glory. Prayer instead of being about us most of the time should be about “how can I be used for your glory today God? What do you want me to do with what I have to honour you? Show me and give me situations where I can share the gospel. How can I honour you with my money? etc

The centre and focus of prayer is seen right at the begging of the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy will be done.” Its about God, not you or I. Its about his will,  what job he wants you to use your gifts in, where he wants your money to be used to glorify him etc.

God chose the nation of Israel to reflect his glory, to be his torch bearers in a dark place, to be an example of how we should live and be in relationship with almighty God. To copy his ways, not the ways of the culture of the times. We too are called to be his torch bearers, to be an example to the nations, to reflect the gospel in all we say and do. If we are not careful culture can effect us so much that we forget how incredible God is and we forget the importance of his word and what it says about prayer.

Lets make our prayer life reflect the God we follow, he isn’t Santa but the maker of the universe, lets come before him with reverence, praise, honour, obedience and repentance.

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Hope you’ve enjoyed the blog post.