Cause and Effect

It is interesting that we may be the laziest generation since creation and this for one reason. We have stopped asking REAL questions.

We have so much information everywhere at the touch of a keystroke or button that we have thought that all of life has answers that easily obtainable. The fact that I can find the temperature of the North Pole and the traffic flow in Siberia from my bedroom has deceived me to think that I can get answers to life’s questions as easily.

Is there a keystroke to sort out my prayer issues? Is there a website or search engine that can deal with relationship issues unless by offering pat answers? Can that gadget that is as expensive, if not more, than an automobile offer a solution to a troubled marriage without directing you to a divorce lawyer? Which keys can be pressed to connect me to God’s perfect will for me?

Is there a gadget that can replace Joshua 1: 8? What about Romans 12: 1 and 2 and 1 Thessalonians 5: 16 – 22? Is there one that can replace actual reading of the Bible and prayer?

I know you know that it is folly to look for alternatives to spiritual disciplines. But then why are they so difficult to do? Why is it easy for the rogue pastor to thrive even when he confesses to be so?

We have stopped asking questions, of course unless to those search engines. We have stopped wondering why things are the way they are. We have stopped asking whether there is something behind and beyond what we are being told.

Let me give an example. Last week I posted about a church I visited and asked a few questions. I will go ahead and add a few others today. But let me add some more information. I trust God will soon give us the full view of this situation.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. (Isaiah 4:1)

I don’t know whether that is a statement or call for questions. Since the foundations for it are already complete in our times, we assume that there is nothing that can be done or that the situation ‘just’ appeared. We assume that there are just too many marriageable women in our times.

Do you ever wonder that it is the women who trashed marriage at their peak as a damper to progress and choice that are the proponents of polygamy nowadays and as second, third … wives, and that not for upkeep? Do you wonder why rich progressive women are paying young bright university students to impregnate them yet they had rejected marriage offers when they were coming in their dozens in their youth?

You see, unless we ask these questions, we will not have the capacity to offer any solution to a world that is quickly spinning out of spiritual control.

But even worse, unless we become more engaged in our spiritual responsibilities, we will have no capacity to know what God requires of us in our generation. It is our spiritual lethargy that has given the evil one so much room in our lives and churches.

I want you to know that there is absolutely no alternative to the actual reading of the word of God. I know some will say listening but that is not so. I love audio Bibles. In fact I am always listening to it. But the reality is that there is a place for it, a place that is additional and not substitutional to reading. Why so? Reading is a more active engagement than listening. And that is why we are commanded to read the Bible consistently. And of course this explains the reason we are helping people with reading plans to make reading the Bible a reality for many who have been taught, or convinced, that the Bible is too big or complicated to be read in its entirety.

Again there is absolutely no alternative to personal prayer. No prayer expert can replace the need to be in consistent prayer on your own, however highly you pay him/ her. Even communal prayer can never replace personal prayer.

There is also absolutely no alternative to hearing from God personally. No prophet has the capacity to completely hear what God is telling you better that yourself. In fact a prophet comes to confirm what God has already spoken. If for instance everything you hear from God is through a prophet, two things are happening, that is a false prophet and you are a fake believer. This is because a prophet from God must lead people to a richer relationship with God.

Do you ask God questions? Does He respond? How do you know when He has responded?

I am the way I am because I am always asking questions. I ask God questions all the time. And He always responds. In fact many times He teaches me by also asking me questions; questions that I must go to the scriptures to get answers.

God is not scared of any questions you may ask, however crazy you think they may be. In fact He loves those questions. They are not indicators of a lack of faith as I was told in my childhood when I asked people questions they did not have answers to. That is why we are supposed to love Him also with our minds, because all our mental quests are settled to our satisfaction.

But I need to add that we are not asking questions as a prosecutor. We are asking to know what God is saying as opposed to asking Him to confirm our folly.

Where are those questions?