The Almighty Means Called "God"

      There is a great channel, an almighty means by which men get almost everything they want in life. That means is called God. And as long as “God” meets these needs, as long as He satisfies these longings in the hearts of people, He remains relevant, needed, sought, and worshiped. And in that case, He becomes something more than an end; He becomes a means, a middleman, some kind of noble pathway for the attainment of nobler heights.

      People generally call God lofty names—Almighty, Alpha and Omega, the King of Kings, and so forth. On a philosophical plane, God is often conceived of and portrayed as the noblest, the most perfect, the unmoved mover, the Great one at the Peak of being. All these point to one thing—the supremacy of God. People, believers especially, have the trite tendency to refer to God as their “all in all,” and to make allusions to self-abnegation, self denial and other things of that sort. But deep within, the case is quite different. There is actually no self-denial, no riddance of private will for the sake of God’s will. The self is still placed above all else. The flesh is still very much alive, and man is in many ways still man. And whenever God comes into the picture, he comes in not as God, but as some kind of elevated puppet for the fulfillment of selfish human longings.

      Selfishness, however, is in degrees. There are people who look upon God simply as the great giver; and so they seek God only because God is a giver of gifts. Take the gifts away and they will have no need of God. These sets of people don’t want God; they want cars, they want good job, a good house to live in, and so forth. God comes into their radar of wants only because they’ve been told that all these, and many others, can be found in the hands of God. They formulate wants, fan up desires and stand on exalted pulpits to peddle lies in the name of sermons.  They know that God is good, that God is a sure foundation, a shield against the wiles of the devils, an exalter of heads. They speak so often about favour, prosperity, healing, well-being, breaking demonic limits, attracting ideal marriage partner, and so on, but focus less on the One through whom all these are possible. Prosperity, wealth, wellbeing: all these are the intrinsic wants of the typical man, the great Ends of both believers and heathens. In order to achieve these ends, the believer hurriedly brings God, once obscure and almost inexistent, into the picture.  Churches readily spring up as from nowhere, to aid souls in the affairs self-seeking and self-help.    We've been told that the real and tangible things of life are spiritual: that everything that is seen is temporary and that only the invisible has real existence. But even those who profess this are, deep within, staunch materialists who pursue the invisible things of life only because of the visible benefits such pursuits would afford them. We label ourselves new creatures, but aren’t we in the inside very much like every other creature, and even worse?

      There are, however, a crop of people who have taken their Christianity or spiritual devotion to a very mystical level. They are not like the hypocritical materialists mentioned earlier. Indeed, their focus is on the invisible and the spiritual. They profess "heaven" and nothing else. They desire only spiritual well-being, and those sublime feelings of joy, peace, and wellbeing that is often associated with spirituality. They rarely pray for wealth, or for "the things of this life." But they are nevertheless very selfish; for, though they don't directly want cars and money and fame, they are certain that if they have God, "all other things will be added." Yes, these people know the scriptures, they know that he who has found God has found everything, they know that he who seeks God will be saved, and so they seek God; not because they really want to seek God, but BECAUSE they are passionately interested in the “everything” that accompanies the pursuit of God. They long to experience the joy of divine intimacy; they are hungry for revelations. They desire to "grow" and to be "used mightily." Now, remove all the benefits, the good things that come after "because" and God, to these folks, becomes irrelevant.  And here lies my question, do we seek God mainly because of the good things God gives us or is it for other reasons?

      Now, before you hurriedly offer an answer, consider this: would you still seek God if God had nothing—and I mean absolutely NOTHING—to offer. Would you still worship God if there was absolutely NO BENEFIT other than just rendering some service, other than just knowing that worshipping God which, of course, is your “reasonable service”? What if there was no paradise, and no reward whatsoever, both in this life and in the next; would people still call on God? What if God was just God and not the giver of things; would people still go to church? What if there were no pleasures in mystical encounters and nothing to gain from God other than Godliness, would people still speak of God with pride and passion?

      God is sovereign, we've been told; and yes he is. And if he is sovereign—which, of course, he is—then, can these good attachments, these divine benefits, if suspended briefly, affect his sovereignty? Can God not still be God without all the good and great attributes for which he is known? We make it seem as though God CANNOT be God without "goodness," without "heaven”, without “blessing” and all that. We make it seem as if God must do certain things or have certain things to be God, when, in truth, God must do or have NOTHING to be God. With everything in place, He is God; without anything, He still remains God. Understanding this, I’m sure, is the beginning of wisdom,

      We hear frequently that we're created for God's pleasures, nothing more; nothing less. That is true, but that is true only in theory, not in practice. Our behaviors, even as staunch believers, portray something entirely different. For, to live completely for God, is to do away completely with self. And when self is completely "destroyed", selfish desires vanish.  But we still have our private desires, and still carry them about everywhere like placards, advertising to both God and man the longings of our rotten hearts.  Un till our will is completely lost in His will, God will remain, to us, but a means to an End.

      It really does not matter what we say, it doesn't matter how we labour to defend our position, how we struggle to explain that, no, it is actually God that we seek: that, after all, God himself has instructed us to ASK.  The truth, however, still stands tall above all else: we actually want something other than God; God is just a means to the great ends of ours. Take these needs or wants out of the picture, and God, like all other means, becomes insignificant.

      Do I write these things to condemn or reproach? Far from it! I’m I saying, directly or indirectly, that our private needs and yearnings are evil? No. The simple truth is this: we should stop telling lies—saying that God is to us what He actually is not, calling Him our Everything, when He is actually nothing to us. For the sake of sincerity, we should acknowledge that God is by and large the Great Means that almost everyone runs after, and that this tendency is wrong and must be corrected.      And here therefore is my submission: if we must worship God, if we must parade ourselves as His sons and daughters, we must as well look upon Him as an end—as the great and eternal End of all beings.