When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives” (James 4:3). What motivates you when you ask? If you are asking to receive things from life rather than from God, you are motivated by a desire for self-realization. Watch out if this is the case. The more you realize yourself, the less will you seek God.
This quote from Oswald Chambers echoes what God has been showing me these days. I was listening to a sermon recently in which the preacher said that it is a problem when we hear more about ourselves than Christ in the preaching, then it would be a motivational talk. The fact is we like to hear about ourselves and how we can become better. We want preachers to tell us how we can satisfy our desires even if they stray from the truth of the Bible. If you look at some of the most popular pastors today, you will see that they are focused on how people can find happiness and achieve their goals, rather than how to please God and walk in His will. The latter is harder to do and is a very difficult path to follow because it often requires suffering and self-denial, which most churchgoers do not want to do. Many people go to church or watch sermons on television and online that take Bible verses out of context and are manipulated to justify their lusts. They do not want to hear about repenting of these lusts so that they will give God the glory in their lives, but rather they seek glory for themselves. I would like to share these verses from the Amplified Bible.
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold, and will turn their ears away from the truth and will wander off into myths and man-made fictions [and will accept the unacceptable]. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 AMP
We look at God as one who should satisfy our needs and when He doesn’t, we get upset and may even slump into depression. We are concerned about ourselves and our problems, forgetting we serve a big God who is bigger than all our issues. We are not holding on to God’s truth about who He is, which may even lead us to sin as we take our eyes off Him and put it on ourselves and our circumstances.
Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have surrounded me; My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up; They are more than the hairs of my head; Therefore my heart fails me. Psalm 40:11-12 NKJV
Our heart may fail us, but our God never will. David understood that the Lord is merciful and that His lovingkindness and truth would preserve him. When he took his eyes off the Lord and focused on Bathsheba, or doing a census that angered God, or moved the Ark without the Lord’s counsel, he would always go back to Him to confess his sins and repent, thereby, putting his focus back on the Lord. We too must be careful of self-realization and repent of being so self-focused and put our eyes back on the Lord, realizing who He truly is. I believe this prayer by A.W. Tozer from his book The Pursuit of God will help us to do that.
“O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my comforts. Though it means the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses, I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee.
Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, ‘Hosanna in the highest.'”
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