Placing God under obligation

When someone works for another person, he deserves his wages which he earns. Most religions in the world follow this idea that they have to earn the blessings of their gods by doing some kind of 'works', whether they are long prayers, carrying out rituals, making sacrifices such as giving money or going on pilgrimages, self-denial, etc. After they do them, these people assume that they have earned favour with their gods, and now they can expect the gods to do for them what they ask.

But the truth is, there is nothing we can demand from God because we have sinned against Him, and what we deserve from Him is only judgment. Then comes Jesus with the Gospel, offering salvation to us as a free gift which we do not deserve. We are delighted to receive this, especially when we understand the meaning of grace–undeserved favour from God to us–which was totally beyond our reach earlier.

But it turns out that it is difficult for us to properly appreciate grace, and we find ourselves continuing to live under the religious concept of works, trying to earn some favour from God. Let us look at some common examples. We hear that it is through our faith that we receive God's grace (Ep.2:8,9). Now we start building up our 'faith' for what we want to happen, by claiming it by repeatedly speaking out that it is going to happen, getting rid of negative thoughts and people who raise doubts, quoting all kinds of promises from the Bible, etc. We fast and pray. We get as many people as possible to pray for us. We 'sprinkle' the blood of Jesus and declare things in the name of Jesus. We make vows to God and tell Him what we will do if He answers our prayer. Etc.

When we do such things, at the back of our mind is the assumption that now God cannot ignore us because of all the things we have done for Him. We think, now that we have earned His favour, like wages, He cannot say no to us. He is now obliged to do what we ask for!

In this way, we have turned 'faith' into works. But isn't faith to trust in God and not in ourselves? It is one thing to believe that He can do anything He wants, but that does not tell us what He will do? If we believe that He is good and wise, isn't it wise and humble on our part to learn from Him and His word what is good for us and then for us to do it? But if we decide what we want, and try to place Him under obligation to do that by different things we do, we are not dealing with Him as our God but as our servant.

God is doing His work on earth using us, the church, the body of Christ. Our part is to do what the Head wants, and not to try to manipulate the Head to do what we plan. Many people are thinking up all kinds of bright ideas and then praying that God must do things for them. Some imitate what some others have done and expect God to do what He did for the others. Without obeying God, we cannot trust in techniques, like Israel taking the ark to battle thinking that God was in the ark!