UGW #7: But God Already Knows Our Needs

Understanding God's Will #7:

But what about the verses that talk about how God knows what we need before we ask, like Matthew 6:8 and Matthew 6:32?  Doesn’t this show that we don’t really need to pray for His care, because He’ll care for us anyway, since He knows our needs?
           
God knows what we need, and He can read our thoughts.  (All the more reason to make sure that we set our minds on things above and not on impure, ungodly things.)  

But once again, it doesn’t say that He responds to our thoughts or that He gives us what we need just because He knows we need it.  We can choose to live apart from God, in self-sufficiency.  We can choose to live life sitting back, putting our feet up and saying, “Ok, God, bring on the blessings... Look how well He takes care of me!”  We can choose to think like Calvinists do, that God's already planned out everything that will happen and we can't really do anything about it, that He is ultimately responsible for what we do and how our life goes and what we pray.  We can choose to float through life thinking everything will be okay, even if we do nothing to draw near to Him, to live for Him, to glorify Him.  

(Yet Calvinism essentially, when you carry that theology out to its bitter end, believes that everything we do glorifies God because God has predestined everything we do for His good plans, pleasure, and glory.  Think about the horrible implications of that for a moment.  Think about how that says God is the ultimate cause of evil, despite a Calvinist's self-deceiving insistence that they're not saying that, and how it calls all evil "good, God-pleasing, and God-glorifying."  They can deny it all the want and say "We don't say that."  But it's what their theology really does teach when you take off all the deceiving layers they cover it up with.)

Or we can choose to believe that when God says we need to pray, He means we need to pray.  That when He says we need to seek Him, we need to seek Him.

If we are not seeking God in His Word and in prayer - if we live like He'll give us everything we need/want regardless of what we do or like He'll always do whatever He's going to do and there's nothing we can do about it - then we are probably living in presumption.  

We are presuming that God will give us what we need/want without us having to do our part, to humble ourselves before Him, to live in obedience and in close communion with Him, to put our concerns in His hands through prayer.  

It's a very effective strategy of Satan's to get people to think they don't really have to do their part or to get people to think they're doing all they need to do just because life is going good for them.  

For some of us, as long as we have enough, we are content to believe that God is taking care of us, that our relationship with Him must be hunky-dory, even if we pay little attention to Him and His Kingdom.  Because the basics are covered.  We float through life from one blessing to the next, unaware of or unconcerned about our spiritual responsibilities, "because God will take care of it all and there's nothing we can do or should do about anything".  

And yes, in His goodness, God does provide a lot of things that we haven't asked for.  

Yet I wonder how much we miss out on because we failed to ask. 

            
There are people who are living very unglorifying lives.  However, they have convinced themselves that they are okay with God because they have a lot of stuff, yet they are drifting farther and farther away from Him without even realizing it.  “Look at how good God has been to me and how He has taken care of me, so clearly He must be pleased with me.”  

They are assuming they are spiritually on-track because they have a lot of things or accomplished a lot in life or are popular, even though they barely talk to God or seek His input or ask what He wants them to do or obey His commands.  They never consider that maybe this abundance isn't from God, that maybe they are headed away from Him instead of toward Him, that maybe they think they're okay with God just because they want to think they're okay with God instead of having to take a good, long look at their life and the changes they need to make.

Comfort and presumption is a dangerous thing when it causes us to be spiritually lazy, when it distracts us and makes us to think more highly of ourselves than we should and causes us to pursue His blessings instead of pursuing Him.      

            
I think (even when we choose self-sufficiency), to a degree, God does still care for us by sustaining our lives, because our days won’t end until He gives the word.  And He sends rain and sunshine for the ungodly as well as the godly.  But life could be so much more if we lived in prayer, obedience, and wisdom.  If we were driven to pursue Him, instead of just settling for His basic care.  Just because He knows our needs doesn’t mean that we will automatically be given abundant life - that we will be truly blessed in the ways that matter - apart from a life of obedience, submission, and abiding in Him.  


[Quick note: Calvinists say that Calvi-god meets the needs of the non-elect, showing them kindness by giving them rain and sunshine, so that He can show a little love to them ... before sending them to hell for being the unbelievers he predestined them to be.  This is how they trick themselves into thinking they really believe God loves all people: "God shows His love to the elect by saving them, but He shows His love to the non-elect by being kind to them, by giving them food and water while they're alive on earth.  See, so God really does love all people.  He just expresses it in different ways."

Big, fat, hogwash lie!

Because the Bible says something very different.  The Bible says God loves the world (John 3:16) and that Jesus died for sinners (Romans 5:8).  And last I checked, all of us in this world are sinners (Romans 3:23).  

Romans 5:8 tells us that Jesus dying for sinners is how God shows His love for us: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  

God Himself, in His Word, told us how He shows love for us, for sinners.  And I see no verses that specify there are two types of sinners: elected ones and non-elected ones.  (Calvinists come to this conclusion by cobbling together other verses, taken out of context.)  

But what I do see is God loves the world, Jesus died for sinners, we are all sinners, and so therefore God demonstrates His love to all sinners - to all of us - by sending Jesus to die for us all.  This is how God says He shows His love.  (Why would Calvinists deny what God clearly said, replacing it with some "mysterious," unclear, cobbled-together theology that says the opposite?  Sounds demon-inspired to me!)  

And just like there's no verse about two different types of sinners, there is no verse about God having two different types of love, one for elect people and one for non-elect.  Calvinists come to this conclusion by building their understanding of Scripture on their wrong idea of election and predestination.

But contrary to Calvinism, the Bible itself tells us why God is kind to people, to the unrighteous ... and it's not just so He can show them some love before sending them to hell like He supposedly predestined.  
            
It's because of this:
            
"Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?"  (Romans 2:4, emphasis is mine)  
            
God intends for His kindness to lead people, the unrighteous, to repentance, not just to show them a little love before He sends them to hell.  And this message isn't just for "elected" sinners.  It's for those who are stubborn and unrepentant and who are storing up wrath against themselves (vs. 5).  
            
God intends His kindness - His care for our basic needs - to be what leads us to repentance.  He doesn't intend to save people through some sort of mysterious "election/predestined before time began/regenerated by the Holy Spirit so they can believe" thing.  He intends for unrepentant people to see His kindness and, consequently, to turn to Him, repent, believe in Him, and go to heaven.
            
This is His intention for those who are unrepentant.  He does not intend for them to go to hell.  He has not predestined them for hell.  He loves all sinners, sent Jesus to die for all sinners, we are all sinners, and God shows kindness to all of us sinners so that we might turn towards Him in repentance.  How can the Bible be more clear!?!]




Anyway, back to the post ...

So yes, God is kind to us all and provides a certain level of care for us all, out of love and concern.  

But Matthew 6:8 is not telling us that we don’t need to pray because God will always give us whatever He wants us to have.  It’s telling us that we are not to be like the pagans who babble on and on to God.  They hoped that their many words would gain God’s attention and favor, "Look how righteous I am to pray so long!"  

But we don’t need to pray lots of words to get God's attention or to earn some favor with Him or even to notify Him of all the details of our needs (because He knows them before we ask).  And God doesn’t owe us blessings because of our “great, lengthy” prayers.  

We pray to acknowledge that He is God and we are not, to build and maintain our relationship with Him, to turn our concerns over to Him and invite Him to take action in our lives, to listen to Him, to confess sins and get right with Him, and to get His Will done.


But just because God knows our needs doesn't mean we don’t have to ask.  Saying “before you ask” implies that we ask.  And immediately following verse 8 is verse 9, which says, “This, then , is how you should pray ...”  So prayer is important, even if God can read our minds and knows our needs.

Prayer is our way of inviting God to handle our concerns, to turn our hurts over to Him and receive His healing, to repent and be forgiven, to praise Him, and to ask God to meet our needs the way He wants to.

And God won't necessarily intervene in our lives if we don't ask Him to.

Notice in the Old Testament, Saul was condemned for not inquiring of the Lord (1 Chronicles 10:14) and Joshua ran into trouble when he failed to inquire of the Lord (Joshua 9:14).  And of course, "You do not have because you do not ask God." (James 4:2).

Prayer matters.  Because God has chosen to give us a certain level of free-will and responsibility.  He lets us decide if we want to live apart from Him or if we want to live under His care, in His Will, in obedience to Him.  God's not "just gonna do what He's gonna do."  He' chosen to hinge a large part of what happens in this world on us.  And He won't necessarily do His part if we aren't doing ours.

(How effective can Calvinist prayer be when they think God has already predestined everything that happens and that He controls their prayers?  No wonder so many Calvinists feel defeated in life.  Satan has gotten them to roll over and play dead!)


And Matthew 6:25-32 tells us not to worry about our lives and the things we need.  “The pagans run after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.”  (Verse 32)  But, once again, it does not tell us that because He knows what we need, we don’t have to ask.  It tells us not to spend our energy chasing after these things, and not to worry that we won’t have what we need.  For they will be given to us ... as we seek His kingdom and righteousness.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”  (Verse 33).

We need to be spending our energy chasing after God.  And on top of prayer, we need to seek His righteousness and His kingdom if we want to be able to experience the kind of abundant life that He wants to give us.  (Eternal abundance, not necessarily temporary.  You can be eternally rich while being earthly poor.  And if that's the case, you've got the best of the two!)

Shortly after Matthew 6, comes the Ask, Seek, and Knock section (7:7-11), which again shows the importance of prayer.  And shortly before it is the Lord’s Prayer, where He teaches us to pray that God meets our daily needs (6:11).

So even though God knows what we need (and so we don't need to spend a lot of time informing Him about all the details), prayer really does matter!  It's how we invite Him to do something about our concerns.  And contrary to Calvinism which says God will do what God will do without any responsibility on our parts, God oftentimes waits for us to pray, to seek His help, to obey, etc., before He does His part.  And this is just how He has decided to run the world.


For the posts in this series, see the "Understanding God's Will" label in the sidebar (or find the original series, without the Calvinism info, by clicking here).