I realise that the title of this blog may scare a few people but lately I have read so many thoughts and platitudes on social media, even from high profile speakers that I am compelled to write. I write with a heavy heart because I believe, generally speaking, we are giving out false information to believers. Let me try and explain what I mean.

Here are some of things we often say as Christians:

“Good morning, this is God, I will be taking care of your problems today so just relax and let me take care of them.”

“Remember that God is always with you and He wants to fight for you. When he allows difficult situations to come your way, you can put your trust in him to be in control and cause everything to work out for good in the end (Romans 8:28) so no matter what happens, hold your peace, remain at rest.. and trust God to fight your battles.”

“God is in control”

“It must be God’s will for this to happen.”

“Whatever happens must be God’s will”

“The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.”

You might be thinking, ‘what is wrong with any of those sentiments – they sound lovely and we’re only trying to comfort each other.’ Unfortunately, that is just what they are ‘nice sentiments.’ Don’t go away yet… We have been so blasé with these kinds of comments, that when it goes badly wrong, the church is left floundering, disappointed and confused as to what actually just happened. The devil is more than happy for us to spout out these words because he knows they won’t work automatically. Stay with me, this will get better – honest!

I’ve got lots of stories I could tell to illustrate what I’m saying but here are just two.:

We once worked with a guy who was very high up in the Elim movement in Africa. We thought he was a great guy (in the main, he was) and we worked very well together. One day we awoke to the news that he had been killed in a motorcycle accident and we were devastated. We couldn’t understand why this had happened and we talked to God about it. We asked things like, ‘where is Psalm 91?’ ‘What about Romans 8:28?’ and so on… As the days went by, it came to our attention that this guy had been living a lie. He had been deceiving many people that felt too afraid to speak out whilst he was alive. Why do I tell you that story? Because if we had heard that he had died, without knowing the full story, we would have spent the rest of our lives wondering why on earth this happened to someone who was a leader in the Church and seemingly a man with good character. Living the way he did most certainly did not affect is eternal status – he went to heaven BUT did it affect his life on earth? Did it affect his connection to God? I absolutely believe it did. God will not be mocked and, if we don’t take his word seriously, we are asking for an early exit.

The devil is too clever for disconnected Christians to fight him.

 Another guy we worked with in Africa also worked for us in Sporting Marvels (a sports ministry in Wales) as a prayer co-ordinator and he died prematurely. We were all shocked!! Big tributes were paid to him because we thought we knew him inside out and then we found out he was married to two people. He had two families and they didn’t find out about each other until the funeral. Has he gone to heaven? Yes I believe he has. Had he lost his connection to God and the ability to be effective for Christ on earth? Yes he had.

The problem is, we think we know. We think that we know a person. If we don’t ask the tough questions, the church just thinks, ‘Oh well, this must have been God’s will!!” We get passive. The truth is, in a lot of instances, if we knew the person, if we knew some background, we’d be more likely to say, ‘Oh… maybe that’s why that happened, maybe they were disconnected’ Much, much harder to take this approach but, in my opinion, it’s far better than the random way we just say, ‘God’s in control’ that’s too easy to say.

Don’t you think that’s an easy cop out? I do. I think we say, ‘God is in control’ far too easily. I think God, occasionally but more than we imagine, is saying, ‘this is nothing to do with me!!’ It’s because of your choices that you are where you are right now.

The verse mentioned above in Romans is the one quoted very often… ‘All things work together for good.” And we leave it there…. It actually says, ‘All things work together for good FOR THOSE WHO LOVE THE LORD.” I could explain what I think loving the Lord might look like but I’m going to say what it doesn’t look like instead. Let me stress at this point that I am talking about deliberate, long-standing choices in the following list and NOT a one-off blip. It’s important that you understand that. We all mess up most days if we’re honest but, if we are close to the Lord, we quickly confess and keep a short account with Him. I’m honing in on prolonged bad choices here with no care for God or others:

• Holding un-forgiveness
• Lack of commitment to church
• Too much alcohol
• Pornography
• No prayer
• Lack of understanding of the Bible
• Control and manipulation
• Anger
• Jealousy
• Sex outside of marriage
• etc. etc.

As Christians, our job, after we’re saved, is to give ourselves the best possible chance of making it on earth. I believe, I know not everyone does, that whatever you do after you’re truly saved, you will go to heaven but if you want a John 10:10 life, you’re going to have to work at it. The days of being passive and saying things like, ‘God is in control,’ yet living exactly how you want, are over. We MUST be more responsible than this and make sure that when our storms come, and they will and sometimes they are fierce, that we are in a great position to fight! The key: Prepare before the storm hits.

So, has God got anyone’s back? Yes He has. Can anyone be confident in such scriptures as, ‘The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still?’ Yes they can. I have two very dear friends who are going through health battles right now but I’m confident they are fighting from a strong position. God has the backs of those who are seeking to follow him, who are seeking to love him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, to love their neighbours as they love themselves and, the hardest one of all, to love one another as he has loved us. Yes it’s a tall ask but, if we’re not at least trying to work at these things, in my opinion, I don’t think he has your back…….

If you’re interested to read more of my thoughts, here is the link to one of my books:

“Get your feet off the Table”