“And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.” Mark 1:40-42
One day I visited a prayer meeting and was struck by how a woman believed we should DEMAND God for what we want. She seemed to think this was biblical. Sadly, I could relate. See, I was for years under false teaching. Prosperity, name it-claim it teaching whereby it was all about US and not about GOD. I was basically taught the Lord created us so He could cater to us and bring us pleasure rather than that He created us to love and worship Him as LORD and to bring Him pleasure and to enjoy His company forever by repenting and placing our trust in and devoting our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. The false teaching I was under took the Bible and twisted scriptures around until they suited us and what we wanted and what made us feel good and until lots of preachers’ pockets were abundantly padded and their congregations grew and grew. We waved our magic wants at God and expected Him to pour down our blessings from heaven so we could live happy, luxurious lives and keep waving our wands at God. I loved the teaching because I wanted to feel good. It wasn’t about loving, honoring, revering, yielding to, praising, and worshiping God and telling the world about the Lord Jesus Christ to help build His Kingdom of followers. It wasn’t focused on the Lord and exalting His name forever. It was all about me, me, me, and us, us, us.
God wants to love and bless His children, but those adopted into His family through Christ should live to love, adore, magnify, and glorify God rather than to greedily seek God to satisfy our flesh – and to humbly pray to Him with trust and thanksgiving. God knows what’s best for us. How does the leper in the verses above pray? In humility and with reverence to the Lord. As should we.