- Apr 12, 2004
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I have a sister-in-law who believes that everything we want we can get through prayer, no matter what it is, irregardless of His will. I wholly disagree. This paragraph made me think of her and others with this new-held belief.
From Erickson's "Christian Theology" Ch 14- What God is Like, p326
"If we have fully understood who and what God is, we will see him as the supreme being. We will make him the Lord, the one who is to be pleased and whose will is to be done. This reminder is needed in our day, for we have a tendency to slip from a theocentric to an anthropocentric ordering of our religious lives. This leads to what might be called "inverted theology." Instead of regarding God as our Lord, whose glory is the supreme value and who will is to be done, we regard him as our servant. He is expected to meet all of our perceived needs and to answer to our standards of what is right and wrong. We need to learn from Samuel, whose response when the Lord called him was, "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Sam 3:10). He did not see this as an opportunity to pour out his concerns to the Lord saying, "Listen, Lord, your servant speaks." When we adopt the latter stance, we in effect make ourselves God. We presume to know what is right and what is best. In doing so, we take upon ourselves a great responsibility: to guide our own lives. But, it is God who knows what is best in the long run. He is the almighty and loving Lord. He has created us, not we him, and we exist for his glory, not he for ours. If we truly understood God's nature, then with Jesus our first concern in prayer will not be for the granting of our desires. It will rather be, "Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." "
From Erickson's "Christian Theology" Ch 14- What God is Like, p326
"If we have fully understood who and what God is, we will see him as the supreme being. We will make him the Lord, the one who is to be pleased and whose will is to be done. This reminder is needed in our day, for we have a tendency to slip from a theocentric to an anthropocentric ordering of our religious lives. This leads to what might be called "inverted theology." Instead of regarding God as our Lord, whose glory is the supreme value and who will is to be done, we regard him as our servant. He is expected to meet all of our perceived needs and to answer to our standards of what is right and wrong. We need to learn from Samuel, whose response when the Lord called him was, "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Sam 3:10). He did not see this as an opportunity to pour out his concerns to the Lord saying, "Listen, Lord, your servant speaks." When we adopt the latter stance, we in effect make ourselves God. We presume to know what is right and what is best. In doing so, we take upon ourselves a great responsibility: to guide our own lives. But, it is God who knows what is best in the long run. He is the almighty and loving Lord. He has created us, not we him, and we exist for his glory, not he for ours. If we truly understood God's nature, then with Jesus our first concern in prayer will not be for the granting of our desires. It will rather be, "Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." "