Poor God!

The passage of the years never ceases to amaze me when I observe what Christians think about God. It is not an uncommon thing for ministerial students in fundamentalist churches to be asked NOT to pray for any Christian work outside their denomination. I know of two such Christian men who were forced to leave the theological college of one church, and candidate for acceptance as a student for the ministry in another. Obviously, in some fundamentalist churches, God is not big enough or gracious enough to bless a church that might differ from us in a few things!

I hear ministers pray almost exclusively for the blessing of God upon their own labours. To ask for the blessing of God upon neighbouring congregations, even if they belong to the same denomination, would be frowned upon.

In this year when Christians remember the 1859 Revival in Ulster and in other parts of the British Isles, it is instructive to hear ministers yearn for the blessing of God, not upon His church in these islands, but upon his own pastures where he labours. Clearly, God is incapable of blessing other churches, only ours!

How distressing it must be for a Christian minister to have such a low view of Who God really is. It must bring him into bouts of near despair when he sees the enormity of the task that lies ahead, with resources available from a god who can only manage to bless one or two congregations. Poor God! Poor minister!

Church history provides us with a tremendous warning in this respect: In England 260 years, Christian people in the free churches prayed and longed for God to bless His church with revival. He did; but He largely by-passed those churches that prayed most for it! His reviving Spirit descended upon the episcopalian churches in that land - to the general uplift of religion and morals throughout the Kingdom.

The god of many evangelicals is only big enough to handle their concerns and their work activity. To ask more would be to ask too much. We mustn't place too many demands on our god, for he has only so much blessing to go around - and we want most of it for ourselves.

Now, I am not a raving ecumenical or liberal theologian; but I almost despair of any real blessing from God upon a church that is so limited in its understanding of the God of Heaven. What does it say about their beliefs! Nay, more, what does it say about their faith!

Let me ask this: is such a petty deity worthy of thinking, worshipping men? Because so many believe like this, they are bowing down before, and worshipping, a false god - for he is not the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christians need to get their eyes off any idea of God that limits him to their beliefs! But once they see "how great Thou art!, then, and only then, will they see their faith rising to match the concept they have of this great sovereign God of the Universe. Only then will they dare to ask for the blessing of God upon the churches. And only then will we see this great Almighty God at work in a special way in His thoroughly decadent and almost dead church.