God is not your ATM. God is not my ATM. God is not our ATM. Automated Teller Machines dispense cash, but unless you want to perform a transaction, you wouldn’t be bothered if one was available or not. Isn’t it the same with us and God?
Lately I have begun to nurse a certain fear that seems to keep things in check. I begin with a simple question: Do I love God for God’s sake or do I love him for what He gives? Another way I like to ask this question goes thus: Am I worshiping God for who He is or am I faithful because I want Him to do something for me? I have a terrible notion that beneath it all, I secretly want what He gives not who He is. It kind of, and I am not proud of this, makes God into some sort of ATM. I approach when I need something, I get what I want and ignore the rest of the time. There’s only one way out: repentance!
Sadly, as much as I should be pitied, aren’t we all like this? The church in Nigeria is plagued with a transaction mindset for a vast majority of believers. A ‘fair’ exchange – we worship and He gives us something: money, houses, healing, good jobs, children, the list is endless. God has become a means to an end. Our ministers pedal this, we have made doctrines, and written books that seem to explicitly and implicitly promote the same. We exist for worship, and worship is our primary duty, everything we receive is a by-product of our worship, it is not the primary objective of our relationship with God.
Does God want to heal? Yes! (Isaiah 53:4-5) Does He delight to give us good health? Yes! (Exodus 23:25) Does he want us to prosper materially and financially? (Isaiah 25:27) Yes! But consider this metaphor with me. Say for example you were a husband who loves to lavish gifts on your wife the one you love. You do the drill of perfumes, flowers, wine, shoes, dresses, gadgets, whatever she wants, she gets. Then you realize after a while that the gifts appear to get her attention more than you do. She gives you some attention but interjects conversations suddenly with questions like: what did you get me today? Do you think I can get another dress, perhaps a blue one? Oh baby look there’s a new iPhone, when would I get mine? As a husband how would you feel? What would you think? The comparison may not be exactly the same, but I end this illustration by asking; what is the best gift that this wife has? It’s not the perfume, or the dresses, or the iPhone, it is her husband! And won’t it be just terrible if this woman loves her husband because of what he gives? Imagine the horror if this husband’s business crashed or he lost his job and couldn’t bring gifts. Simply put, this woman ideally would be happier if she realized her husband is the end not the means to an end.
As a church we don’t appear to understand this, but I pray we do collectively. Jesus is not a means to an end, He is the end. He is our pursuit and our price. If he is not that to us, we may as well place a question-mark on our Christianity. God is not an ATM, He is God all by himself. He doesn’t exist to make us happy. The universe revolves around Him and there is none like Him (Revelations 4:11, John 1:1-5,10-14)
Do you love Jesus more than everything?
In the past, in the 70s and 80s perhaps into the early 90s, a revival swept Nigerian university campuses. Most of the Christians who are either middle aged or advanced in years were products of that revival, including my own father. I grew up knowing that my father was a singing person (even though he really can’t sing). One of the many songs he used to sing, I remember is this one:
Something more than gold, something more than gold.
The Spirit of God in the life of a man is something more than gold.
When you hear such songs, they were coming from a place of authentic faith which is resolute through life’s uncertainties, because when they found Jesus, they really found Him. Juxtapose that with the gospel music videos of today, SOME of which have props that in attempting to make the point that God is good, end up showing unnecessary excessive affluence. I’m not saying they were perfect back then or that their faith is better than ours, my point is that they found something which we may not have found today. And God is not the problem, for Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. However, Jesus can only fill what we have made available to him. Instead of withholding nothing, we withhold something and are in faith to receive the goodies. Unfortunately we miss the real thing. It’s almost like ordering pizza and when your delivery arrives, you admire the box hugging and kissing it and never setting it aside to enjoy the pizza which arrived in the box.
Until we can boldly declare: you can have all this world but give me Jesus. Then we may not yet be worshipers indeed.
*Take Me Deeper is an essay series by Tim Konyehi on the body of Christ in Nigeria and around Africa.
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