Christians

I effing hate Christians. Seriously effing hate.

Okay, no, not hate. But really close. They piss me off so bad. I just want to slap their stupid little faces around. Effing seriously!!!

There are plenty of reasons that make me feel like this, but three in particular have been on my mind lately, and they are related.

Christians have absolutely no teeth. The church has forfeited practically every ounce of power it ever possessed. I'm not talking about cultural or political power. Indeed those have subsided as well, but I couldn't care less. Those are fleeting and crappy and nearly worthless anyhow. What I am talking about is far more serious, far more important, and in a far worse condition.

The church has forfeited its spiritual power in three ways that are intimately connected.

First and perhaps most serious is that the majority of Christians have become practically, if not academically convinced that there is no enemy. Most of them, even if they believe in the existence of Satan, live out their lives and their faith in a way which pays not even a cursory respect to this. There is no recognition of spiritual warfare, or even the negative consequences of free will and root sin (pride). The majority of Christians I meet attribute every freaking bad thing that happens to God's will, and most of them simultaneously commit one of the other grievances I'll talk about later, which is saying that God's will is not knowable. John Edlredge talks about this problem in Wild At Heart. He tells of a ministry he knew of that hit some hard times. Their reaction was to close up shop. Now I don't know if they attributed it to God's will, or just fell back on a lack of commitment, but they utterly failed to recognize that there was a real enemy out to thwart their good efforts in God's name. My own anecdote is what I am going through now. A month ago no one I knew or was around had any doubt about God's will in regards to Heather and I being together and getting married. But suddenly, all anyone can think is that everything must have been wrong and this must be God's will. That He obviously doesn't want us together, or at the very least, wants us temporarily separated. Now I'm not saying that's not what He wants . . . but what do they have to go on? What little there is is outrageously suspect for more reasons than I can healthily consider.

So where does this come from? Well belief-wise its old. Real old. Some, if not most Jews long before the Bible was even being recorded had given up, or never recognized the idea of Satan. In modern times however, the idea can be traced back to Martin Heidegger. But no one listened to him because he was an effing Nazi. No, seriously, he was. Rudolf Bultmann was paying attention and popularized the idea. His implementation was far more reaching than just Satan. Bultmann's aim was to completely demythologize the New Testament and Christian faith as a whole. What a dick.

Slowly this idea takes root, and combined with growing intellectualism, secularism, and cultural pandering suddenly realizes a huge upper echelon of the Christian faith that academically discharges belief in Satan and spiritual warfare. But most Christians aren't well educated enough to be such complete morons, so where did they go wrong?

I think its two things. One obviously is Satan himself. Its much easier for him to do his business if no one acknowledges that he's doing it. But, and maybe this is part of his method, is misguided attempts at a better faith. Most Christians, by teaching or by striving, have equated good faith with a complete reliance on God. While generally a good thing, one potential side effect of this is unilateral attribution. This sublimates any understanding of negative free will choices, and spiritual warfare, and supposes that everything single freaking thing that happens is because God wants it to. Which is freaking stupid.

But Zach, what about Job, God let bad stuff happen to him. Okay, but that is not a universal example. Let's look at Adam and Eve. God told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil right? If He had meant for them to do it He would have freaking told them to. But He didn't, and they did. Why? Satan tempted them and they made a negative choice allowed by the free will God gave them. And as a result they freaking died. Eventually.

And today's Christians have completely jettisoned this. We need to wake up and realize that Satan is real. And he wants to destroy and rip apart and tear down and apathize every good thing. Every good relationship is a target of Satan, because he hates love and hates reflections of God. Just because your boyfriend or girlfriend or friend acts like an idiot, or something goes wrong in the relationship, doesn't necessarily mean it isn't right. In fact it could be confirmation that it is good. Satan doesn't target things that aren't contributing to the kingdom. Now that doesn't mean you SHOULD be with the person you're with, or be friends with a particular. But it means you should stop and think, "Is there something bigger going on here? What do I know to be true?" Satan is pulling and prying at every crack in every good thing. Be ready.

Now another thing, and one that is somewhat influenced by this, is that Christians have completely abandoned prayer. Now systematically they have not. Christians pray, at least some of them. But do the prayers do any good?

Well there are two elements to this? 1) Do the people praying believe their prayers are being heard and will be answered? 2) Are the people actually praying for something significant?

Now the first one is a moot point to talk about. There is essentially nothing more I can add to this. If you don't believe God is listening, if you don't believe He can do it, you need more help than I can presently give. But trust me, there are a million and one stories out there of God answering prayers, and doing it in a big way. Just Sunday I heard a story of a guy who had prayed a woman out of a wheel chair. Legit. He was working for a Christian agency that went and confirmed it as a freaking miracle. Take that Satan. Effing *******.

The second point, however, is something to which far less attention has been paid, and as a result this is far more rampant in the praying portion of Christians. Christians pray insignificant prayers. Now by insignificant I don't mean things like, "God help me find my car keys." God does actually care about that, and will help, and there is glory in it. What I mean is that so many, so freaking many Christians have gotten into this terrible habit regarding big things. In little things they remain faithful. "God help me with this test." But about bigger things, the common prayer has become less powerful. People often pray, "God, let your will be done." What an effing stupid prayer.

Now obviously I don't mean that universally. I want God's will to be done. And heck, Jesus prayed that line in the garden of Gethsemane. But there are outstanding elements about Him praying that. 1) Jesus already knew what God's will was, He was praying that prayer by way of personal submission. It was an offering of His desires. 2) Jesus also prayed for something else before this. He said, "God if there's another way do it, but I submit to Your will."

Christians these days have gotten into a habit of just praying the second part. For instance, I've been asking people to pray for Heather, that her heart is turned back to remember the love she once felt in abundance for me, and recognize the love I have for her. And most of them say, "Well I'll pray for God's will." Now there's a part of me that has no problem with this . . . but think about how stupid that is. All you are praying for is what can happen without any input at all from you. You are saying, God, I want you to do what you are going to do. That prayer has almost no power. The only thing that gives it any power at all is the fact that in this case it involves a person's choice. So free will is involved, and that limits God's power because He chooses not to overstep. But if a person is under submission to God, or if it is an issue that involves no choice?!

Let's take a look at another example, another story I heard Sunday. Alyssa was telling about this guy she went to church with. He had cancer that had metastasized and was killing him quickly. He couldn't walk, he couldn't really speak. So the church rallied people to pray. They spent time at a church service praying for him, and having 5 other churches in the area do the same thing. By the end of the service he was talking and moving around. He went to the doctors the next day and had not a single cancerous cell in his body. He died 3 months later. Of a heart attack.

What's the moral? God's will is going to happen no matter what, if the people involved submit to Him. But if its something that doesn't involve choice, then there is no stopping Him. But even then, He will give according to His will as we ask. He healed the man, because they wanted Him to. But God still wanted Him in heaven, so He did it. Let's say you are praying to get a promotion. God can tug at your bosses heart and do whatever the heck He wants. Its happened before and it will happen again.

If you are going to pray, pray a prayer that will make a difference. Pray for something. Jesus himself said, "Ask for anything in my name, and it will be given to you. Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you."

God Himself told us to ask for what we want. To supplicate Him for our desires. By praying only, notice I said "only" for God's will, you are disobeying God. And you are lying. Your heart has a bent, it has desires, and not admitting those to God is kind of like lying. If its not a good desire get rid of it, or ask Him to. If it is, why not ask? He told you to.

There is a potential disconnect here. Since God has a will, and it is perfect, how can we pray things into happening? Now there has to be an answer, because God tells us to do it. What is it? I'm not entirely sure, but its probably something like this. God's will is like a river. There are points where it is narrow and only one way will work, like how to get to heaven, or who we are to marry. But there are points where it is broad, and He wants to let us have a say. Don't pass that up.

If what you want is in line with God's will it will be given, and if its not He's not going to get pissed and scold you. Now none of this is saying that if you pray for something and it doesn't happen that something is wrong with God. Maybe what you prayed for is outside of His will. Maybe He's saying not yet. But if you don't pray for it . . .

Pray prayers that mean something. Pray prayers that make a difference.

Lastly is the whole matter of God's will anyways. I've heard so many Christians say lately, for so many reasons, that we just can't know God's will. Really? Freaking really?

Everything God has ever done has been to display His love for us to enter into a relationship, that is maintained by living in order with His will by way of submission. There are few things God wants us to know more than His will, because its His will FOR US. And God isn't good at staying quiet about things He wants us to know or do. Remember Jonah.

I think the real problem here is with listening. Most people don't know how to hear God. They don't know how to listen, and so they make up for that lack by saying they just can't know God's will. Or even worse, by telling you that you can't know God's will.

Now people have screwed up God's will before. They have supplanted His will with their own. But most people, at some level, have an understanding that they are doing this. And more importantly, why should that discount the possibility of ever getting God's will right?

Let's start simple. Do you think God wants you to kill someone today? For most of you the answer will be no. Now maybe not everyone, but generally no. How do you know this? Because He has said so, and He hasn't said or done anything to make you think He's changed his mind.

Now it takes practice, it can be hard, and its not always perfectly clear, but God's will is knowable, because He wants it to be.

Now what's really bad is when all three combine. So a bunch of Christians run around saying everything that has happened is God's will, which they can't know in a forecoming sense to know what to do, and they have to do something because all they are praying for is what they don't know which is what is going to happen. Are you completely insane yet?

Satan is actively working to screw up every good thing. People are able to make bad choices based on those temptations and those lies. And we have the power to make a difference. We can pray our asses off. Now go do it. I'm going to.