Genie In A Bottle

Good morning, my friend!  Good morning, Father!

“And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.  But He answered and said, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” - Matthew 4:3-4.

Father, in Your gentleness Your Spirit tugs on my heart this morning.  We read these words in I John 5:15, “And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”  So, we pray fervently and muster up a modicum of faith to believe.  Then, if our prayer is not answered according to our desires, we become disappointed with You and question Your goodness, power and faithfulness.  We question whether Your Word is true, because after all we prayed, but it didn’t “work.”  

The enemy constantly needles our faith and what we believe.  He will pull out all the stops in order put a wedge between us and You.  He wants us to become bitter, so we stop coming before You to be filled.   Lack of spiritual filling, like physical starvation, makes us weak and vulnerable to his lies and deceptions.  It is the enemy who wants us to say to You, “If You are who You say You are, You will do _______ for me.”  Then, if You don’t answer according to our specifications, we grumble under our breath and insinuate that You have failed to keep up Your end of the bargain and cannot be trusted.  When Jesus was tempted in the desert, the enemy brought Jesus’ own sovereignty into question, saying to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."  Jesus didn’t take the bait to command anything into being that wasn’t in Your will.  Instead, He consistently chose to embrace Your will and not His own, and responded to the enemy’s taunts with the Word of God.  Teach us to do the same.

You take us one verse further back, to 1 John 5:14 that says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, he hears us.”  Keeping this verse as foundational for the next, it then goes on to say in verse 15, “And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”  We want to conveniently forget the “according to His will” part of the previous verse that acknowledges Your wisdom and sovereignty.  We prefer verse 15, taken out of context, that diminishes You to nothing more than a genie’s lamp or a vending machine.  If we put in our prayer coins and make our selection, but we don’t receive the item we have chosen, we become angry at You for being a disobedient God.

The sting this morning comes when You reveal to my heart that when I pray, insisting MY will, not Yours be done, that my manipulative prayers are no better than witchcraft.  You reveal that deep down inside, I believe that if I get the words just right - when I use some special turn of phrase, my prayer can transform into something akin to a magic spell, that when spoken under the right circumstances, will manipulate the heart of God to do my bidding.  Forgive me, Father!  I don’t want to serve a God who is so weak as to be under the thumb of His creation.

Lord, I lift my friend before You.  Father, forgive us when we demand our own way, and for our anger when You fail to submit to our attempt at conjured magic, disguised as prayer.  Father, we repent of trying to badger, manipulate or twist Your arm into compliance.  We renounce any partnership with witchcraft.  We submit our prayer requests before You this morning.  Instead of changing Your plans, we ask that You change OUR hearts if something in our prayer is outside of Your perfect will.  We need Your help with this, Lord.  Renew our minds to see our circumstances through Your eyes and Your heart.  For those things that are beyond our ability to understand, help us to entrust them to Your hands.  Teach us to not take Your truths out of context, and in so doing, delude ourselves and dishonor You.  Today, we humbly bow our hearts before You and declare, “Not my will, but thine be done, on Earth, and in our hearts and lives, as it is in Heaven.”  Show us where we err in our beliefs and take Your Word out of context, Lord.  Then, change our hearts to embrace Your real truth and Your perfect will for our lives.  In Jesus Name ❤️

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