Why Are You With God?

If you are a Christian, why are you a Christian?

Are you with God because of what He will do for you or because of who He is?

The easy answer is “both.” But what happens when that is tested? Where do you stand with God if He doesn’t do what you want Him to do?

If you have been a Christian for long you have been made aware of many Bible passages that seem to promise a response from God to your prayers that will please and satisfy you. Consider the following:

• This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him (1 John 5:14-15).
• If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7).
• Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you (Mark 11:24).
• Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).

It all sounds pretty straightforward (although there is a caveat with each of those statements, like “according to His will,” “If…My words abide in you,” etc.). However, every single Christian has this in common: we have prayed and not gotten the response from God we believed we were entitled to (based on the Scriptures above and many more). What then?

Do you remember Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians chapter 12? Do you also remember the run-up to that passage? In chapter 11, he reminds the Corinthians of how difficult life had been for him since his conversion on the Damascus road. Hard work, imprisonments, beatings, whippings, stonings, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, exposure, and constant worry about the churches had become the norm for him. Then, in chapter 12, he reveals that a thorn in the flesh, which he called “a messenger of Satan,” was given to him.

He ”pleaded with the Lord … that it should leave me.” But it didn’t. Instead, he was told that God’s grace would be sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Despite all of his sufferings brought about because of his zeal as an evangelist, God denied the apostle’s request to be rid of his thorn in the flesh. It’s only then that we find out why Paul was with God in the first place. When denied his request and told that God’s "power is made perfect in weakness” In that light, Paul said,

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Gladly? Yes. Because Paul wasn’t aligned with God because of what God promised to do for him. Rather, it is clear he was with God because of who God is (I AM THAT I AM).

Then there is the story of the three Hebrew men in Daniel chapter 3. Despite their having been elevated to roles of great authority in Babylon, they refused to bow down and worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue. Nebuchadnezzar himself got involved and threatened to throw them all in a fiery furnace if they didn’t comply. Their reply to him is priceless:

O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Daniel 3:16-18).

They believed God could deliver them, but they emphatically stated that even if He chose not to, they would never bow down to the statue. Why? Because they were aligned with God because of who He is, not because of what He would do.

So many Christians today are hurt and angry because God doesn’t give them what they pray for when they pray for it. They seem to think He has gone back on His Word. They shake a fist at heaven and say, “You promised that my prayers would be granted! You lied!”

What He will do for you or who He is?

There is nothing wrong with preachers proclaiming the good news that through Jesus Christ, God will forgive sins, make things new, raise believers from the dead, grant us eternal life, and bring us to a place especially prepared for us. That is all biblical.

But how often do preachers wash their congregants in a sermon that doesn’t focus on what they’ll get from God, but simply reveals who God is? That He is holy? That He is love? That He is faithful? That He is true?

Where are the sermons on Revelation 4:11?

Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.

Or 1 Chronicles 16:29,

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name…

Or Psalm 115:1,

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.

There are all kinds of reasons that when we cry out to God in prayer, He doesn’t respond the way we ask or think He should. James said that sometimes we “ask with wrong motives” (James 4:3). Sometimes we aren’t in God’s will when we pray. Sometimes we don’t pray in faith. There are many more reasons why our heartfelt prayers often don’t move God to do as we ask. Is He worth it then?

Why are you with God?