CAN WE FORGET GOD?
(8-minute read)
We all need healthy relationships where there is honest conversations and vulnerability, and consistent mutual effort put into uplifting each other in prayer, showing respect, integrity, and gratefulness. The rewards permeate every aspect of our lives. The same can be said about our relationship with God. It’s not enough to know that God exists - even the devil knows that! (James 2:19). God did not let His Son Jesus to die on the Cross so that we would know that He exists. He wants us to stay connected with Him every day of our lives. However, without consistent effort, we end up deprioritizing Him and leaving Him on the bench as a reserve player in our life journey. Yet, as soon as we hit a roadblock or rock bottom, we blame Him for forgetting us!
Honestly speaking, healthy relationships take tremendous effort to maintain. That is why Jesus emphasized that “first and greatest commandment” is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37-39). ‘All’ means full effort; not half measures.
Why was Jesus saying the obvious? Don’t believers know that we ought to love God and people? Yet Jesus knew so well our natural tendency to take things easy, take an unseen God for granted, and neglect to work on the important relationships in our lives. Without keeping up the necessary disciplines we are instructed in the Bible, God easily becomes buried in the exigencies of our daily living.
The Bible revealed that just one generation after Joshua (the one who succeeded Moses) died, “another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things He had done for Israel. (Judges 2:10 NLT). Let’s admit it, humanly speaking, it is easy for us to forget the Lord when we are enjoying success and material comfort.
To keep our connection with God strong, there are 5 altars we must not neglect. These altars symbolize relational disciplines every believer must cultivate and maintain.
ALTAR OF CONFESSION AND REFLECTION
The altar of confession and reflection is crucial for our growth and maturity (Hebrews 12:2 NKJ). It is the place to have honest conversations with the Author and Finisher (also originator and perfecter) of our faith. It is the place we initiate conversations with God from the start to the end of the day. It is the place where we engage Him in our thinking, planning and response.
Our humility and health go hand-in-hand. King David admitted that his sins were eating away his vitality and strength, and he turned to God to set himself right (Psalm 31:10). Sin is harmful not only to ourselves, it is also damaging to our relationship with others. It is a humbling process to quieten down, to admit our wrongs, and to let the Holy Spirit speak and reveal to us areas in our lives that we really need to deal with. The heart of God says, “if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Coming clean before God provided relief and release for King David who admitted, “Finally, I confessed all my sins to You and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And You forgave me! All my guilt is gone.” (Psalm 32:5). It is noteworthy that David emphasized ‘all my sins’ and ‘all my guilt’. To the extent that when we are humble and honest with God, we have freedom in Him. Hiding behind religious activities and harboring sin produce the opposite effect.
ALTAR OF PRAYER
This is the place where God wants us to talk to Him because He is important to us and we know He has our best interest at heart even when He disciplines us. We also need to banish the idea that talking to God is an indulgence that happens only when we are on vacation in some exotic resort. (Don’t expect good conversations with someone you hardly have time for, just because you’re on vacation!)
To be prayerful is to have real-time conversations with God in the ordinary course of life. Truth be told, it does get harder to pray when we are in the thick of hardship. That is why believers are called to do life with each other (not just wait for text updates) so that we can hear each other’s prayer language and the voice of faith. If no one has heard you pray aloud, it is time to start practising and pray with others in their time of need. In this way, we help each other to build our altar of prayer, especially when one is down and find it hard to pray.
When Job lost his children and wealth (everything!), his three closest friends travelled long distances to see him in person. Although they fumbled in trying to say the right things, they nevertheless sat there with him in the most painful time of his life. Granted that we don’t always say the right things to each other. Even Job struggled in his conversations with God. He said, “I know that You can do anything, and no one can stop You. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions My wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I - and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me. You said ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’ 5 I had only heard about You before, but now I have seen You with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” (Job 42:2-6).
We do sometimes say the darndest things to people and to God - but it is alright because relationships are not performances. We must not neglect the altar of prayer out of the fear of saying the wrong things to God.
ALTAR OF THANKSGIVING
God never changes (Hebrews 13:8). We can trust Him to continue to love and care for us as much as He did in the past. We need to be careful about giving God thanks as though we are giving Him a good performance evaluation and award for what He has done.
“Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!’ (Habakkuk 3:17-18). It is wrong to associate thankfulness with perfection: to think that we have reason to be thankful only when conditions are favourable for us. That would be letting our circumstances rather than our faith determine God’s goodness. Conversely, we have nothing to be ashamed of when we thank God even when nothing is working in our favour or according to conventional ideas of what success looks like.
Paul wrote a beautiful letter of encouragement to the people in Philippi while he was in prison because he had unbending faith and trust in God. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT).
At the altar of thanksgiving, we nurture a heart of thanksgiving that is resistant to hard circumstances and harsh conditions.
ALTAR OF WORSHIP
True worship is a place of surrender to God’s Lordship, Kingship and leadership. It is a place of devotion, entrusting our lives to the Author and Finisher of our faith. It is also a place of doing anything that pleases Him, and giving up anything that does not please Him (even if it pains us to do so). It is a place we don’t need anyone’s agreement to declare that God is good, “His faithful love endures forever” (Psalm 136 NLT).
ALTAR OF GOD’S WORD
People today store hundreds of photos of their loved ones on their smartphones so that they can access them anywhere, anytime, especially when their loved ones are far away or they see them less often than they would like. The Bible is similar to smartphones in the same way: it stores ‘text images’ of God so that we would not forget Him. No one can claim to read the Word of God diligently and have no evidence of it in their behaviour and life because to read the Living Word is to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us God’s heart, justice, truth and power, compassion, mercy and love.
Hebrews 4:12 (NLT) tells us about the diagnostic and expository power of God’s Word, “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
Before we let life get in the way and forget who God, let’s seriously pay attention to these five altars today. Don’t wait till it is too late.
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 29 June 2024.
