Asking For Stuff

When Jesus was asked (in Matthew 6) about how to pray, before He launches into one of the most famous prayers in human history, He explains that you don’t have to go on and on and on in order to get something out of God. His actual words are;

“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” – New American Standard Bible

When Jesus goes on to describe how to ask for things in His model of a prayer, we can see exactly what He means and that He expects us to realise that when we ask God for something, we don’t have to try and persuade God into giving us what we are asking, but rather, just ask;

“Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” – New American Standard Bible

I once heard a preacher say that he is often guilty, in his prayers, of trying to explain things to God in terms He’s understand. I agree and would take it further by saying that sometimes, when we pray, we can fall into the trap of trying to emotionally blackmail God into giving us what we want.

Imagine the requests above in some of our evangelical churches today;

“Oh, that you would open the windows of heaven and allow not your children to starve for lack of nourishment. That you would even to us, give a crumb of your holy bread, opening up Your hands that we may take but a piece and thank you from a deep joy. For yes, each day we do ask that you would do this and that even today, we would have that which you would have for us, and even give to us that we may receive with thanks from Your generous hand”

And that’s only for “give us this day our daily bread”!!!

Of course there’s room for flowery language, especially in praise and worship as your heart seeks to express that which is happening within it. Go ahead! Fill your boots! Worship and praise and jump and dance and boogie and clap and write your own improvised psalms! Why not!? That’s cool.

But what I believe one of the things is that Jesus is saying here is that when it comes to asking God for things, you do not have to impress Him with elegant prayers, but just spit it out and leave the rest to Him.

Jesus could have tried to play a huge mind-job on God in the garden of Gethsemane when He asked if it could be possible for Him to be spared being killed on a crucifix, but even there, He kept His prayer simple and straight to the point. He didn’t try and dodge around the subject so as to trick God into granting Him something, even though (and this could be a controversial point) Jesus was asking for something He knew He wanted but wouldn’t get;

“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will”

As I read the Bible, I become more and more certain that God just wants us to be honest. Whether we want to ask Him for something serious, or stupid, if it’s in our hearts, He wants to hear it because then He can deal with it and we will be better off for it.

Short, simple, to the point and honest.

Yeah, right. Right? Really?

In the gospel according to Luke, chapter 6, Jesus tells His followers to do something crazy. Some might say it's bordering on stupid and that is to love your enemies and bless those who curse you.

You ask anyone and the vast majority of people will tell you that they love their enemies, but they'll also have people they don't like and they won't mind telling you. Yup, this is something tho whole world seems to think it does and hold as a strange kind of fluffy ideal, but nobody actually does.

The thing is, Jesus is telling us to go against the grain of nature, transforming the idea of right and wrong into something utterly alien.

To add weight to the matter, He goes on to say that if you love those who love you, then that's no credit. Makes sense when you think about it, should your boss give you a bonus for turning up to work? Of course not! And what kind of person hates on the people who love him anyway?

What I see here is another example of how the gospel that Jesus preached is a gospel of excess. All through the New Testament (and the Old), we see that God is someone who gives more love than is containable and more grace than is required and so it seems natural that the Man who showed more grace and compassion than the law of Moses required (take the woman caught in adultery as an example - what I want to know is if the religious leaders caught her in the act, why were they even watching!?), expects more from us than the bare minimum. That's why He gives instruction to go the extra mile, give two coats instead of one and so on.

That's God's nature so it's natural that He expects His children to be the same.

So, if you love the people who love you, there's no credit to be had. After all, so what? But if you love the people who hate you? Now we're talking! If you want Jesus grooving to your beat, you've got to start doing crazy things like loving your enemies!

This is more than just excessive giving because when Jesus is talking about giving more, doing more, offering more, He's taling about something where there's already some kind of positive relationship whereas here, He talking about giving to someone who probably doesn't want anything to do with you and would be glad to dance on your grave.

You might tell me that you're selfless, you live a selfless life, you look after your mum and that proves you're great and all that and yes, that is good. It's good to do that and expected! But that's not what Jesus is talking about here. He's talking less about loving your mum and more about loving your mum-in-law or your son-in-law! Now, I don't have a mother-in-law and I've never had a mother-in-law. Maybe one day I will, but my observations are that in-laws don't always get on with each other, but whether we're talking in-laws or cross cultural boundaries or any kind of boundary, Jesus expects His followers to be oozing with love toward everybody!

Whoever you hate, I've sure you have a reason. They ignore you, make you feel stupid, make you look stupid, make you feel unimportant, show off how much richer they are than you and I'm sure the list is as long as toilet paper, but that's not the point. These are the people that Jesus is talking about.

Jesus wants His followers to love the people that any right-minded people would run away from.

And that's hard. At least, I find it hard.

That's what He did, and I for one am glad because if He started hating on those who have ever hated Him, where would you and I be right now? He loved me when I couldn't give a flying monkey's about Him, when He was nothing to me, when He was just an inconvenient religious dogma. During that time, He loved me.

He didn't even have hate for the people who crucified Him and He forgave those who slammed the nails into Him. Some people would see that as weak, but when you think about it, you must surely agree that to do that takes strength of character that not many of us will claim to have.

There's nothing for you to gain when you do this. It's all for others' benefits.

Love your enemies and bless those who curse you.

Yeah, right.

This Is For You...

One thing that unites pretty every branch, denomination and flavour of Christianity is The Lord's Supper. It has a number of names in different traditions; Holy Communion, Communion, Holy Eucharist, The Lord's Supper to name but a few. It's held in high reverence and respect by even the most nonconformist of traditions.

The tradition from which I come (evangelical/pentacostal) calls it simply Communion, but is referred to as Gathering Around the Table and (rather confusingly at times) Going Into the Table! What is clear, though, is that there is a lot of respect shown to the table itself and the cup and the plate. Some might say that too much respect is shown to the table, the cup and the plate.

I've heard numerous testimonies from people who say that they have experienced a royal skull cracking because they were sitting on the table! No, not during Communion, but maybe during a youth meeting or after a service. Sitting on the table was a sign of disrespect.

But Jesus said "This is my body which is given for you". He didn't die for the table, He died for people. Sure, don't be stupid, but it's not right that we can run around with our arms in the air shouting "The table! The table! The cup! Ooooooh! The pretty silver plate!" and then abuse a brother or sister.

It's like another part of the Bible where the religious leaders are giving Jesus a hard time because His disciples were picking bits of corn to nibble on as they walked through a field, on the sabbath! Jesus was clear and He said "Look boys! Sure, God gave you the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (or words to that effect :-)

Jesus told Peter that Satan is mindful of the things of man and not the things of God, but don't think that God has no thought for you. Jesus came for you, not things like pretty church buildings, pretty cups or a heavy wooden table. Jesus didn't even come to establish the crucifix as an international brand, He came to save you. He is more interested in you than he is in objects and things.

When you get this, you'll realise how beautiful, important and intimate celebrationg Communion actually is, taking part by eating the bread and drinking the wine will fill you with a sense of belonging and you'll know that you have a part in the enormous plan of salvation which was achieved by someone dying for you.

The bread symbolises the body of Jesus which was given in its entirety, willingly and in love by Jesus. The wine symbolises His blood. Together, they symbolise how the wrongdoing of the entire world, every single human being, has been dealt with, washed away, for whoever believes. Because Jesus took the blame for your sin, you can be perfectly innocent before God.

Welcome to Bible Shorts II

Back in the day, I had a website called Bible Shorts, just a place where I could share what I read in the Bible and what it meant to me.

Since then, I've started many blogs, usually to do with technology or my observations on the things that make life a little quirky, but this is what I really want to do, to share my Christian walk with anyone who'll read it.

It goes up and it goes down, it has good times and it has bad times, it has times where I'm ready to fly up to Heaven and High-Five Jesus Himself and it can have times where I doubt that I've ever been a Christian.

So, coming soon to this web page, is Bible Shorts II. Bookmark or subscribe to the RSS or maybe just make a mental note to check back.

Cheers