When The Devil Quotes Scripture

I want to don my controversy hat today for a moment.

I want us to realize that among the verses the enemy loves quoting is that God hates divorce.

The fact that he does quote it does not mean that it is not true. What it means is that he seeks to use that truth to steal, kill and destroy.

As we all know, the devil knows the scriptures than all of us. In fact, he even believes them.

His only problem is that he has chosen to walk in the path of disobedience, rebellion if we may say so.

That is why he thrives on nitpicking.

He does it because he knows that by confusing issues in the scriptures he can gain a following of rebellious partners.

Remember he even used a scripture on the Word Himself?

His purpose for using that verse is therefore negative

You see, God gave that truth instructively and restoratively. God wants marriages to thrive. He therefore points us to the pitfalls of falling from His standard.

The devil uses the verse to breed pain and resentment and condemnation.

I have said elsewhere that the fact that God hates divorce does not mean He loves abuse and unfaithfulness and desertion.

Yet that is what the devil wants to focus on.

He seeks to make vice thrive in marriage by using that verse as bait.

Then he will be able to make marriage the breeding ground for pain and resentment as a result of allowing abuse.

The verse is used to normalize every evil in a marriage by taking the abused on a guilt trip when they feel they can endure no more because they know that the wounds will continue festering and growing in intensity. Then of course he will inspire an explosion.

But even worse is the fact that the wounded has no capacity for responding to God’s love or calling as they have been blinded by all that pain.

Some of the hibernating ministers I have written about are so because of that deception. Marriages have killed enough calls of God and ministry.

Though marriage is important to God, it can be destructive to His agenda if it is elevated above where God has placed it especially because we know that there is no marriage in heaven apart from Christ’s marriage to His church.

It is not a marriage if it blocks you from serving God as He orders you.

And we have enough examples in the Bible; from Solomon to Ahab.

Let me give us verses to consider when marriage becomes an obstacle to God’s purpose for your life.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: (Mark 9: 43 – 47)

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

You see, God and His agenda is primary in your life and not marriage.

Marriage fits in that agenda if it is aligned to that purpose. Otherwise it can be a weight to obstruct and distract us from that purpose. On such then the command to cut off is allowed. Otherwise you could enjoy a marriage that disqualifies you from eternal life.

God hates divorce. That is true.

But marriage is not all there is to that instruction.

We need to know what God loves. Because that is how we can understand why He hates divorce.

One such purpose for marriage is a godly offspring. This easily tells us that God is glorified when a marriage is healthy since that is the only time it can produce a godly offspring.

We of course know that a marriage, however good it is, is against God’s purpose when it is centred on the here and now. Simply speaking, a marriage that is focused on the world and all it contains is a marriage that will never please God. A marriage that is geared on acquiring all there is to acquire in this life is a vain marriage.

Why did Esau’s marriages grieve Isaac? There was no violence or infidelity or these other things we complain about. It appears as if it was so satisfactory to Esau and his wives that he did not even notice his father’s grief.

It grieved him because it cut Esau from the vine that was the promise.

A misyoke in marriage is a serious problem because it brings about partners who are pulling in different directions like Nabal and Abigail.

What has you marriage done to your passion for God? What has it done to God’s call on your life? What has it done to your relationships with people who help you connect with God better?

God hates divorce. But it is of no use to remain married and head to hell because the marriage cut you off from the vine that is Christ.

God hates divorce. But do not let the devil give you lessons on the same.

When God says He hates divorce, He is thinking about restoration and health. But when the devil is pushing the narrative, he is after your destruction.

In other words, God seeks to liberate you and give you a lighter yoke. The devil on the other hand seeks to enslave you.

Whose script are you reading from?

You Do Not Understand

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4: 15)

I had a very interesting dream. In it, I left home very hurriedly. In fact it was like I stumbled on a very long bus and decided to ride it to wherever.

I then became a train and then the rails ended and it became stuck.

As we were pushing to get it unstuck I do not know where all my clothes went as I was left with my underpants.

Then we were in a very public place and I was the only naked person around. Yet there was nothing I could do because I did not know where to hide or get something to cover my nakedness.

I also could not cower in any corner as the place was packed and I needed to visit a few places like the toilet (bathroom) and offices. Interestingly, nobody there knew me.

Almost everybody I met lectured me even as others called me names as I still walked around in my naked state.

Nobody, and I repeat nobody, sought to know why I was naked.

When I woke up, I considered the fact that we are very quick to pass judgment, even on those we claim are judging others.

When was the last time you sought to understand a situation before giving a piece of your mind to someone you thought needed it?

Suppose someone in that whole crowd had sought to understand why this white haired man was walking naked? Yet who does that?

Speaking the truth in love means that that truth is clothed in love. In short that rebuke is shielded by love for the person it is directed to. Which of course means that it is meant to embrace the person it is directed to.

Of course the dream led me to think of Isaiah who for three years walked without even that underwear and what he had to endure beyond the embarrassment nakedness produces in a normal person, let alone a family man and servant of God.

Did his wife ‘love’ him? What about the royal family that he belonged to? Did they care to understand why he was that way?

Do you seek to understand people, especially before rebuking them? How do you rebuke people?

That is the single difference between shaming and Biblically rebuking.

Rebuking in love is restorative since it covers the ‘offender’ with compassion and its goal is bringing them back into the fold.

It therefore seeks to shield them from exposure as much as possible as their restoration is of utmost importance. And love does not seek to rub someone’s past on their face at a later time. Of course such rebuke has no interest in proving their superiority over the offender.

It can be compared to a person once rescued from drowning rescuing another person from drowning. Or have we forgotten this?

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

Love loves before, during and after rebuking. And due to that it seeks to understand beyond the fault as it reaches out to the person.

It doesn’t mean it is always received positively. Some interpret that love as folly and seek to take advantage of it to feign repentance to gain advantage. And it is only love that has the stamina and vision to see through that pretense. It does that because it remains when all the rest leave, either in contentment, consternation or contempt.

It goes without say that only love can reach meaningfully and effectively to the offender as it knows that the offense is eating at the offender as we see in Psalm 32.

But our generation has gone even beyond that to abomination. We seek to gain prominence through that exposure.

How many mint millions through sharing those juicy videos? How many become famous because they shared some concealed tidbits about someone.

I recently read a very sad story (in my eyes).

A person left a very respectable profession to sell her nakedness on the net. And her reason is what saddened me.

People will sell my naked pictures if they get them and I will get nothing anyway. Why not sell them myself and get all the money? And she gets some handsome piles of cash for it, enough to bid a good and respectable job goodbye.

Thus we have come from rebuking in love to shaming to gain advantage (and publicity and cash of course).

I know of pastors who use information divulged in secret to spice their sermons.

I once sought to help a fellow (and much older) minister understand a situation he was dealing with by giving him some details of the same in confidence and he blurted the same to the person who had shared it with me. It of course messed my relationship with that person. I don’t know whether I have regretted doing something like I did (still do to date) especially because I had told him that he was not allowed to use that information. I had trusted him because we had served together effectively for years.

I was foolish but I learnt my lesson.

But what I am saying is that speaking the truth or rebuking in love covers and never takes advantage.

I doubt anybody can tell someone rebuking in love that they do not understand because of the love that is encompassing the rebuke.

And it is not the soft, fluffy, compromising love we are talking about. It is a love that will see through the restoration.

That is the love that is able to get someone from any addiction because the addict feels safe in it to attempt change instead of explaining his addiction away.

A rebuke in love gives someone the shelter they need to attempt to change for God. Any other rebuke chases them away from God’s hands and grace.

But we have no options since we must rebuke.

The choice is between rebuking by pointing out the error or sin OR clothing our rebuke in love, ready to walk with the sinner if he does repent and covering them as they walk toward bearing the fruit of their repentance.

Do you understand? Or am I condescending?

Compulsion in Faith

Jesus said therefore to the twelve, "You don't also want to go away, do you?" (John 6:67WEB)

I want to address us to probably the clearest distinction between Christ’s church and cults. And it is the fact that Christ never at any one time takes our capacity for logical choice.

Christ never pushes us to make compulsive choices. Neither will He take us to positions where our power for making choices and decisions is lost or compromised.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Timothy 1:7)

He will never intimidate us to make choices that we would rather have not made.

And I will quickly add that He will also give our minds ample reason to explore the consequences of those choices we make.

He is not like those brokers and partners who will have some small print below the dotted line you will sign on. Then they will use them when you cop out of the contract.

One time I was invited to what they call network marketing training forum. And you know those meetings are enticing to the point that they make someone commit before thinking through other things. But I was somehow able to postpone the commitment part because it is important as a minister to consult with the Headquarters first.

Do you know the question God asked when I prayed?

Where is their exit clause?

I realized that from all the training and enticement there was really no option of leaving once I joined.

Of course that was God’s answer for me since from my experience walking with Him He is at will to change orders whenever He wished as my Lord.

Incidentally I have attended a few other such and always see the same thing. There is no considering of an exit in their invitation to join.

But it is not so with Christ.

He always gives us choices.

If you MUST attend that church; if you MUST support that prophet; if you MUST join that group; that is a clear signal that your relationship to that person or group is unhealthy and ungodly.

The Christian faith comprises of choices we make and can unmake.

This of course means that we must consider all options before we make those choices as we will then be bound by them as God honors promises that are made and will hold you accountable to keep them.

That is why sobriety is important. You must go through the decisions and choices you make before making them. Remember what Ecclesiastes 5:5 says?

And that is the clearest distinction between faith in Christ and all other faiths.

We follow Him with our eyes open, wide open. And that is the beauty of our faith as it is bathed in freedom.

Is that your faith?

Bastards

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 23:2)

I want to continue writing about the independent woman and her fruit.

I hope you realize that not all single mothers produce bastards. Only the independent woman can and does produce bastards.

Let me explain.

The independent woman kicks at the structures, let me not even call them spiritual, though they are. She trashes conventions.

She then creates her own structures and conventions as the head of the same.

Let us go to the Bible.

Hagar made Ishmael what we know him for because she challenged Abraham’s promise. Were it not for the Abrahamic fact they could have been done away with.

Hagar first seeks to supplant Sarah when she gets pregnant. And we see her son also seeking to supplant Isaac at his ceremony.

To date we see his descendants trying to supplant Israel and everything Israel in their narrative. Look even at their book the Quran.

Yet do you realize that Abraham had other sons after Isaac?

Let me just talk about one, Midian.

Incidentally, apart from giving Moses a wife, he must have instructed him in the ways of faith those forty years he lived with him. And that because we later see him advising him about his leadership.

Yet never once do we see Midian fighting for space. He was content being Abraham’s son without needing to be made or appear to be the son of promise. Yet Ismael continues fighting to date.

If truth be told, Midian occupies a higher position than Ishmael since his mother was married after the death of Sarah and so couldn’t really be called a concubine. She was only called that in the context of the promise.

Gideon had over seventy sons. I am sure several of them were sons of concubines.

I want us to look at Abimelech.

Though Gideon refused to be made or even called king, his mother gives him a kingly name.

His mother was the reason he could kill all his brothers to rule when none of them had shown any interest.

The point I am making is that it is not the fact that a woman has no husband that makes a bastard. It is the spirit of rebellion being reproduced in the son that makes him a bastard.

Let me explain.

Take this girl who innocently was sold to a son of Belial who does his martial training with her. Her continued submission means death or disability, forget what it does to her children.

She does not leave him because she seeks independence. She daily prays for her marriage and her husband to change. She has not trashed him or all men. She has not moved to other men. She continues being faithful to her vows.

That is the spirit her children will pick.

Or take this other on whose man is the cockerel of wherever he goes, sampling women and girls like a wine taster.

Again, even forgetting the impact of his conduct to in his children, she is at high risk of dying from a myriad of STDs.

Again she does not go out to demonstrate her attraction or hit back at his waywardness. She continues valuing herself and keeping her vows. That is the spirit her children will pick.

Abigail was such a woman. Married to a man without honor, she sees him selling his posterity to destruction and decides to step in.

Rebellion is what produces bastards.

It could have been ignited by abuse or unfaithfulness, but the reality is that the woman had that seed even before that maltreatment. The bad treatment just brought it out.

It is possible to walk out and still be full of grace just as it is possible to remain in an abusive marriage and still be full of grace.

But the only way to have grace is to allow the grace of God to work in your life and the standards of God to operate in your life. It is to allow God to deal with your hurting heart and bring it healing.

Only then will you be able to look at your tormentor (assuming he is so) with grace. Then you will be able to look at his offspring with grace and disconnect them from your past injuries.

Then, whether you decide to remain or leave, your spirit will be pouring out grace instead of poison.

Otherwise the poison in your spirit will poison everything and everyone who comes close to your person. And children have no choice on that.

When you hear a woman always speaking negatively against men, all men, it is a red signal that she is hurting. But worse is the fact that she is not willing to let go of her hurt.

Unless she heals, her children will become bastards, disqualified from the things of God.

And that because even if they are allowed they will pile all that hurt on everybody they come across.

It becomes worse when they get married before healing as we see in Proverbs 30: 21, 23.

What am I saying?

Woman, allow God to heal you from all that hurt because only then will you be of any use to Him or His kingdom.

The sad fact is that we have so many of these hurting and spewing venom women jostling for positions in church for them or their bastards. And the leadership look at their purses instead of hearts as they give them those positions.

It is no wonder that the church has stopped for the most part being the refuge to the hurting.

When will we give God our hurting hearts to heal?

Desperate Independence

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 am being consistently led to some trending topics of our day.

So much of baby daddy and baby mama and deadbeat this or the other flood social media and at times even the mainstream.

It seems as if the topic we loathe most is the one we cannot avoid.

You will hear a young girl calling all men dogs or something even more detestable (I am an African) at her prime (whatever that means).

After a few years you see her boasting about her bae (again I do not know what that means) before after a heartbreak shoots more poisonous epithets at men.

She then boasts of her independence from men and her liberation from their ‘abuse’.

The interesting thing is that after a few years (or not so few) she will be at it again, parading the infallible man friend.

Then after another heartbreak she finally decides she is done with men. This is after a child or so and many times having milked enough resources from any man who dared cross her path. There are women with a child having up to three birth certificates, each with a different father so that she enjoys triple ‘blessings’ in the name of child support. Each ‘father’ is confident he is supporting his child.

That may be the reason many of those ‘single mothers’ will never allow their children to connect with their fathers.

They will therefore be financially stable.

Only to see her wooing small boys to marry her once she discovers that her independence is a lot of hot air and all the men of substance are unreachable. This time, instead of looking for a man to provide for her will gladly proudly provide a completely useless man comfort just to have someone to come to at home for some stupid comforts.

I believe that is what this verse is talking about.

You see, we defy God and His standards at our peril. And we can never bypass the consequences of the choices we make in that direction.

If we do not go the Sodom way, we will be bound to reap from our choices in a big way.

It is possible for a woman to stay without a man in God’s scheme of things. But it has to be consistent with God’s revelation like we see with Anna in Luke 2.

Seeking to reap womanhood aside from God’s revelation is disastrous.

Yet this is what we see when we look at women nowadays, even women in church. They are competing for prominence, especially by taking all the power positions in churches, leaving men with little or no place to serve. They are therefore left with looking for money to run the affairs of the women, even in God’s house.

A man without responsibility is a completely emasculated specimen, meaning that he has a very weak spine, if any at all.

And that is why in places where women have been consistently empowered we have men who have gotten lost to drug and alcohol abuse since God created them for domination. Removing responsibility from them therefore effectively kills their reason for existence.

That is why there are no men for these independent women, especially because they have been taught to dominate their space, including the men who approach them. It is interesting that it is these women nowadays who are pushing for men to be allowed to marry many women. Sadly, I have heard that argument even from women pastors.

Sadly for them, the men who can manage them are all occupied and responsible. Meaning that they will not create space for that desperate independent woman as they have their family they must keep intact.

I wrote a more comprehensive post long ago with the title, Genetically Modified Woman …’ and so will not dwell so much on this.

Suffice it to say that I want us to appreciate the point that for that equation to change, men MUST take their spiritual position seriously. And it is not much different for women.

Otherwise we are doomed. And that is what the world has been aiming at since time immemorial.

The cry we see in Isaiah 4 is the cry of the fiercely independent woman of our day who has decided against going God’s way. It is the cry of the bitter single mother who despised all men because one man messed her foolish search for security outside God’s bounds. And it is the cry of the woman who decided to eat life with a big spoon by ditching responsibility and spiritual accountability by making men toys to play with.

It is the cry that is produced by a full life lived outside God’s revelation.

Of course there are women who were abused and cheated on and betrayed as they sought to walk in God’s ways. And like I always say God always reserves grace for them. They therefore do not get into the desperation we see here as they are on God’s side. Even the repentant have grace extended in their direction.

This post is about the bitter independent woman who had thought she could do without God’s order of things.

Why Our Generation is Doomed

I have written elsewhere that our generation is the block to probably the greatest move of God since creation.

Today I want to explain why God MUST get us out of the way to be able to bring to pass His purposes on earth.

Remember a whole generation had to be cleared before Israel could get into Canaan?

And I recently came to realise that it was more than the 603,000 who were counted who were swept out of the way.

Did you realize that only the ones who were able to go to war were counted? This means that most people over forty were not included in the census. It is therefore possible that over one million men were cleared.

Back to our topic.

Do you know that in the not so distant past armed robbers would come to surrender their arms to church when conviction caught up with them as would many other criminals?

Why is there so much murder even involving people trained and paid to protect society? Why is none of them running to church?

You see, our generation started looking for trained instead of called shepherds. Instead of getting loving shepherds, we look for the most qualified hirelings.

How do I go to an armed pastor or one with armed bodyguards to surrender a firearm? How do I go to a skilled theologian to pour the splinters that are my life to bring them together?

We forgot where we started and built structures that block people who are called as we were from ministry.

Many of those who love being called fathers of ministry started with nothing but a calling and passion for ministry. Many were plucked out of classrooms and lecture theatres to join ministry. And the church had no qualms allowing them to exercise their calling in ministry. Many simply resigned from their jobs or closed businesses to pursue the call. And they were received and allowed to minister.

Why is it that now that you head those structures you insist on someone having advanced degrees to do what you were allowed to do with no papers whatsoever? Why are you blocking people from serving God under you? Why do you brand someone a firebrand when your call was just like his?

The church of Ephesus was rebuked for leaving their first love. Ours has forgotten there was any love at all.

Like the Galatians were told, they started by the spirit but have resorted to living by the flesh.

We are blocking God from moving by our structures and titles. And we think God is clapping for us for being so creative and wise.

But I think that the clearest indictment on our generation is that we have commercialized the Gospel and ministry. What I mean by this is that we have treated God and His work as just another way of earning one’s keep.

I fight with fellow ministers (they are the ones who actually fight me) because I refuse to commercialize the writing ministry God has entrusted to me.

Not so long ago a very senior minister told me emphatically that God cannot tell me to give my books out for free as if he was there when God issued that order. It grieves very many ministers that I do not make any money from all the books I produce.

Interestingly, they have no qualms at all when I do not charge them for publishing their books which includes among other things editing and layout which are many times beyond their financial capability had they chosen to go to business people dealing with the same. Many times that is the reason they come to me.

They do not even know about my involvement in producing Audio Bibles and giving them out which is even more costly.

Commercializing the Gospel makes it unattainable to the poor, the focus on the anointing Christ quoted. And that alone is enough to disqualify it as the Good News.

And we do not need to look farther than the popular preaching and teaching of today. It is meant to make someone comfortable so that they can then easily fork out cash to the preacher. That is why preaching against sin has almost completely disappeared from the faith. In fact you may be shocked to realize that even evangelism seeks to bring people to Christ without addressing the sin issue.

Even prophecy has fallen into the same error. We do not prophesy to bring about the purposes of God. We prophesy to make a name for ourselves so that we can then access the cash offerings.

And we expect God to be indifferent to this!

The last nail on our coffin is due to my last point. We are unwilling to allow others to take our positions. We have completely locked out the next generation from taking the reins of leadership, insisting that our anointing disqualifies retirement. We talk about mentorship when we are talking about our grandchildren and spiritual toddlers, plus of course loyalists, many who have no idea what ministry is.

When we were starting ministry, there was an urgency and we had timelines before when we ought to have finished our assignment and either handed over or gone home to hear, ‘well done, good and faithful servant’. At that time forty was many times the target.

Then the rewards of ministry became too sweet that we forgot those timelines.

We then said fifty when forty came too quickly. And fifty came quicker still. Then sixty and it also disappointed us. And we are changing church constitutions to do it.

Now we are stuck because we are unable to hide from the fact that we are changing the said constitutions to serve our person. But we are still not willing to leave the spoils of ministry.

We are therefore leaving no options even for God but to kick us out of life for His work to progress.

I hope you understand me.

 

Sonship is Restrictive

There has been a lot of press about Prince Harry and his choices.

I read somewhere that since infancy it was made very clear to him that he was not being prepared for the throne and so he received a totally different treatment from that of his elder brother who is only one step from the throne. From the onset William was being prepared to take the throne and there was no secret about it.

That also means he was given a lot of leeway to run his life the way he wanted. That is why he could marry a divorcee from another race and it was okay.

Yet his father had to divorce his wife to marry the love of his youth because royal seed must be properly arranged. And it is interesting that there is a man somewhere fighting to prove that he is the product of that young love that had to be destroyed lest it defile royalty.

To imagine he received that treatment when he was third in line to the throne appears strange. But then since his brother got married and got three children he has been thrown to sixth in line

No wonder he appears to be throwing tantrums at the firm, whatever it means.

What am I aiming at?

God’s family also operates like that.

Those with greater responsibilities have more restraints than normal children. Only that we determine the kind of children we will become.

Discipline is many times reserved for the children with a future. You will not waste words and canes on a child showing no promise. In fact they will many times be pampered to at least belong.

I am in the disability ministry and know how it has become akin to walking without shoes on glass shards to address disability in an accurate and at the same time politically correct way. I will therefore avoid going to that direction.

You will discipline the child who understands what responsibility is.

Let me get to my point.

Remember when you got saved? How did you feel when you forgot a promise you had flimsily given?

Many times someone could even go for a fast to try to repent about that sin.

Do you realize that the restrictions of sonship increase with time?

Why is it that your sensitivity to sin has decreased as your faith and ministry grows? How come that you gloss over promises you make to the point that you refuse to take calls of people you have lied to?

You are actually not a son if you can find peace in sin.

How many ministers think of lateness as sin? How many will apologise for keeping people waiting yet they were the ones who set the time? Again that could be the clearest signal that they do not belong to the Kingdom of the Holy God.

If you are being prepared to reign with Christ, do you think He will flimsily prepare you?

A believer’s allergy to sin should increase as they grow. And they should lose peace promptly if they sin. Otherwise they have been shoved aside.

A son being prepared for the throne will never be allowed breathing space if he thought of doing something not aligned to the throne. The throne owns him until he becomes king. Then he will own the throne, though even then there will be more restrictions since he must then ‘cover’ the throne and the kingdom it runs.

I am however dealing with believers.

How can one be a minister yet be unaffected by sin in his life? How can someone claim faith yet live a life that is contrary to the faith he proclaims?

Is it possible to be a laughing stock to the world when proclaiming decrees from heaven?

What is possible is that we lost out on our positions in the kingdom that the king has abandoned us to our designs. We are released from our positions and become commoners.

You can fly off because you have been released from responsibility, and of course sonship.

And for some of us complaining that our faith seems to be all work and no play, I want to assure us that we are like that because we MUST function properly in the kingdom because the kingdom cannot afford to let go of us. We are restricted because we have a serious assignment and so must stick to the straight and narrow.

We must be hedged in on all sides because we must be exactly as the kingdom will have us.

Why do you pray? How do you pray? Does God speak to you about you as you pray? Does He challenge your everything, including thoughts and motives, as you pray?

Or does He only give you words to proclaim?

That could be the difference between a son and a subject, sometimes a subject who absconded sonhood by his choices.

A son is never left alone, not unless his father has given up on him.

You can’t enjoy the world and what the world offers comfortably and still claim to be a son of heaven. Both can simply never coexist. That is what Christ said.