If Praying Is All You Do It Is Not Enough

Type amen and watch mon­ey flow into your bank account. Expect a mir­a­cle and watch it hap­pen. Name it and claim it.
We hear these state­ments all the time .We see them on social media too. And yes we even hear them in our churches.
But is this sound doc­trine anchored in scrip­tur­al teach­ings? Will we see mon­ey in our bank accounts sim­ply by typ­ing amen to a post on Facebook? Are we assured wealth if we like, share or sim­ple type Amen?
Can we sim­ply “name it and claim it” as some min­is­ters of the gospel tell their con­gre­ga­tions? Is this kind of doc­trine anchored in real­i­ty or are min­is­ters of the Gospel preach­ing their own gospel?

The God of the Universe cre­at­ed this world and he designed the prin­ci­ples by which we should live . He tells us in his word the things we should do and he also tells us what we should not do . By those very prin­ci­ples the word of God out­lines cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly what will hap­pen when we devi­ate from the path he laid out for our direction.

So is God Almighty sit­ting above the clouds with a wand direct­ing our paths mag­i­cal­ly or are our direc­tions influ­enced by our very own actions? There are numer­ous sto­ries of sup­posed min­is­ters of the gospel who say the Lord will pro­tect them from snake bites. Unfortunately snakes do bite and the bit­ten does die if those snakes are venomous.
Some who pro­fess to be Christians jump into deep waters and claim the Lord will save them even though they nev­er learned to swim. If you do jump in and nev­er learned to swim know this, you will cer­tain­ly drown.
So when they drown does that mean that the Lord does not exist ? Does it mean that the Lord is not in the mir­a­cle work­ing business?
The Temptation of Jesus
Matthew 4:3
…2And after He had fast­ed forty days and forty nights, He then became hun­gry. 3And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, com­mand that these stones become bread.” 4But He answered and said, “It is writ­ten, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’ ”…
The Temptation of Jesus
Matthew 4:6
…5Then the dev­il took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pin­na­cle of the tem­ple, 6and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is writ­ten, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’ ” 7Jesus said to him, “On the oth­er hand, it is writ­ten, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’ ”…

So accord­ing to the Scriptures we should not put the Lord our God to the test !
How then do we rec­on­cile telling oth­ers to type Amen and watch mon­ey appear in our bank accounts? What is the foun­da­tion or the basis for the name it and claim it doctrine?
If I say I want to be President of the United States and pray that I become President with all my heart will I be President?
I sin­cere­ly doubt that . There is a sig­nif­i­cant amount of hur­dles I would have to first over­come in the process of becom­ing President and pret­ty much all of those hur­dles requires sig­nif­i­cant input from me.

So then how do we attain the bless­ings God has in store for us here in earth ? Is there no way for us to live blessed lives ?
Matthew 25:14 – 30

The Parable of the Talents

¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a jour­ney, who called his ser­vants^[a] and entrust­ed to them his prop­er­ty. ¹⁵ To one he gave five tal­ents,^[b] to anoth­er two, to anoth­er one, to each accord­ing to his abil­i­ty. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five tal­ents went at once and trad­ed with them, and he made five tal­ents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two tal­ents made two tal­ents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one tal­ent went and dug in the ground and hid his mas­ter’s mon­ey. ¹⁹ Now after a long time the mas­ter of those ser­vants came and set­tled accounts with them. ²⁰ And he who had received the five tal­ents came for­ward, bring­ing five tal­ents more, say­ing, ‘Master, you deliv­ered to me five tal­ents; here I have made five tal­ents more.’ ²¹ His mas­ter said to him, ‘Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant.^[c] You have been faith­ful over a lit­tle; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your mas­ter.’ ²² And he also who had the two tal­ents came for­ward, say­ing, ‘Master, you deliv­ered to me two tal­ents; here I have made two tal­ents more.’ ²³ His mas­ter said to him, ‘Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant. You have been faith­ful over a lit­tle; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your mas­ter.’ ²⁴ He also who had received the one tal­ent came for­ward, say­ing, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reap­ing where you did not sow, and gath­er­ing where you scat­tered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your tal­ent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ ²⁶ But his mas­ter answered him, ‘You wicked and sloth­ful ser­vant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gath­er where I scat­tered no seed? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invest­ed my mon­ey with the bankers, and at my com­ing I should have received what was my own with inter­est. ²⁸ So take the tal­ent from him and give it to him who has the ten tal­ents. ²⁹ For to every­one who has will more be giv­en, and he will have an abun­dance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be tak­en away. ³⁰ And cast the worth­less ser­vant into the out­er dark­ness. In that place there will be weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth.’

Bible​.org said quote: We should care­ful­ly note the out­come of faith­ful ser­vice, and of unfaith­ful ser­vice, in this para­ble. Faithful ser­vice led to increased respon­si­bil­i­ties in the king­dom of heav­en, and eter­nal joy in the pres­ence of the Master, Jesus Christ. Unfaithful ser­vice led to con­dem­na­tion, the removal of one’s stew­ard­ship, and an eter­ni­ty of weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth in out­er dark­ness, away from the pres­ence of our Lord.

I believe fun­da­men­tal­ly that there is anoth­er mes­sage for us right here on earth> As Jesus told this para­ble it is inter­est­ing to note that in the para­ble Jesus stat­ed that the mas­ter gave the tal­ents to his ser­vants accord­ing to their abil­i­ties. How often do we hear some­one lament not hav­ing the abil­i­ty to dunk a bas­ket­ball or jump 7 feet into the air which would bring them millions?
How often do we hear friends and even fam­i­ly mem­bers wish they had the means to be rich like some­one else? God gave all of us gifts accord­ing to our abil­i­ties. Our abil­i­ties may not make us mil­lions but they cer­tain­ly make us enough for us to live by.

You may not be the next tech bil­lion­aire but you may be able to knit, sew , or cro­chet, find a way to mon­e­tize that gift the Lord gave you and not watch and lament the immense gifts of your neigh­bor. Do not curse your Lord as that wicked ser­vant did, make use of the gifts he gave you.
Some Pastors and teach­ers of the gospel tell their con­gre­ga­tions to expect a mir­a­cle in their lives. Well Christians should not expect to live on mir­a­cles . Miracles are enough to tide us over for a lit­tle while . Christians should live blessed lives. We can only live blessed lives when we uti­lize the gifts God has giv­en us. That means look­ing deep with­in us and find­ing out what it is that we are gift­ed at doing. What it is that we love to do and do it , do it well and find a way to make a liv­ing doing it.
If you are a great talk­er don’t just chat away, use that gift to improve lives , learn to be a moti­va­tion­al speak­er . If you are good with babies and lit­tle chil­dren and absolute­ly love them start a day-care center.
If you love to cook or bake learn how to start and oper­ate a restaurant.
If you love the wild out­doors , offer guid­ed tours , There are myr­i­ad ways that God has blessed us which will enrich our lives.
Sitting around wait­ing for a mir­a­cle will not bring pros­per­i­ty to your life. Those who are preach­ing pros­per­i­ty are sell­ing you short by not telling you how you should live a blessed life by exploit­ing the gifts God gave you. They are liv­ing their pur­pose and so should you.