Not My Jesus: Personal Genie Jesus

A Lot of People Approach Jesus Like He’s a Genie in a Bottle

Whatever they ask for, Jesus has to give them. It sounds something like this: “I’m a Christian. Because I signed up to become a Christian, I’m going to pray these prayers. I have my prayer list, and I want this, this, this, and this. Make sure you don’t miss anything on the list, God.”

I know that sounds really awful, but the fact is it’s a little closer to true than not.

There are a lot of people who have a list of things they’ve been hurt by. And if they say, “I’m hurt that Jesus didn’t do this,” it is normally a prayer that they prayed that he did not answer.

• I had someone that was sick, and I prayed, and God didn’t help them.
• I was without a job, and I prayed, and God didn’t provide the job.

And the list goes on.

Frequently, when people are bitter with God, it’s because of something that was on the list that God didn’t do. And that sticks in such a negative way in their perception of God. For some people, that’s when they slipped away. They’d say, “I walked away from God when he didn’t answer this prayer. He didn’t do this thing, and it didn’t happen for me.”

So I think it’s important that we address this. We need to learn how to get to the other side of those bitterness moments, and we need to learn the way God actually wants to connect and relate with us.

The American “I Want It Now” Problem

For us as Americans, we have this thing where we want what we want, and we want it now.

Recently, a new Chick-fil-A opened up the road from us. I went up there with my wife, and it was really slow. All these people were whizzing past me in another lane. I’m thinking, why do they get to go? What’s happening? Turns out I had gotten in the wrong lane. There was a separate lane for the app order. Sherry’s like, “Well, you’ve got to download the app, Matt. You order in advance and you can skip the line and just drive through.”

I’m like, “How quick can we download the app? Get the app downloaded before my nose gets past the cone where I can’t swerve over.” I did not get the app downloaded in time, and I had to sit through the rest of that line.

It is kind of ridiculous, but we do have a little bit of an “I want what I want, and I want it now” mentality.

You know how it is with Amazon Prime. They say two days, or you can get it all together in three days. You click two days every time, even when you don’t need it, even when the two items don’t work without each other. You’ve got birthday cake and candles, and the birthday isn’t until next weekend, but you want those candles in your hands tomorrow.

And a lot of us have that same view of our relationship with God.

God, I prayed for this. I want to marry this person, and I want to marry him now. I need that job. I need that raise. I need to get hired for that role right now.

Our patience level with God can start to turn him into a personal genie. If I went through my whole prayer time over the last month and asked myself, “What percentage of my time was just being with God, hearing from him, letting him speak to my heart, letting him direct my life?” and “What percentage did I spend asking for things?” I think most of us would say our list of asks is longer than the time we spent connecting with him.

It is almost like Jesus has this heavenly credit card, and we are saying, “Hey, follow me through life, Jesus, because there are a lot of things I want, and I would really like to cash in on them.”

The Genie Mentality: Where It Comes From

The genie mentality tends to come out of two things we think about Jesus, and because we think both of these things, we figure he must be a genie.

Thought One: He’s good.

He loves us. He’s kind. He’s merciful. He’s gracious. He’s got all that good stuff toward me, all that caring heart toward me. So obviously, he wants what I want for my life. He understands me. He wants my best.

Thought Two: He’s powerful.

He can do it. He’s God. He created the universe. So he’s got my best interests at heart, he loves me, and he is powerful. Of course, it is going to work out.

And those things are true. He is good, and he is powerful. But it doesn’t always equate to you getting what you want. That is maybe a false equation we set up in our minds.

About 40 or 50 years ago, a movement started in the American church called the Word of Faith movement. The basic idea was: if you got the right combination of scriptures, confessed them to God, had enough faith, God had to bless you. He had to give you things.

One of the verses that got quoted quite a bit, out of context, was James 4:2.

James 4:2-3 and What We Skip

James 4:2 says:

“You do not have because you do not ask.”

So the equation was: ask for more. You need to be asking. And the Bible does actually teach us to bring our requests to God. It is actually okay to pray for what you want, what you need, and to ask God. That is real.

But that is only half of the context.

The very next verse, verse 3, goes on and says:

“You ask and you do not receive…”

Why? Because you ask wrongly. To spend it on your passions, your desires, your personal ambitions. It was just too self-centered. It wasn’t coming from the right place.

How many of you can honestly admit you have asked God at least once for something that, looking back, you can say, “I can kind of see why God said no”? I am going to raise both hands because I have prayed a lot of selfish prayers in my lifetime.

The Fit-Throwing Problem

When we ask and we don’t receive, we get mad at God. We throw a little fit. We have a meltdown on aisle five. There is a Christian toddler in the aisle screaming with a death grip on the bubble gum that God won’t give him.

You have got a death grip on that person you want to marry, and that career you want to have, and that mortgage, and that thing you wanted to purchase. And God has to pry it loose because he is not going to do it when you are throwing a fit.

And the strategy becomes: I’ll make you feel bad, God. I’m going to go to my small group and tell everyone how you let me down. I’m going to whine to everyone that will listen, and then you’ll feel bad and give it to me.

Here is what I want you to know: God is not sitting up in heaven saying, “Oh my gosh, he doesn’t like me. What do I do?” God is just fine. He is not going to be shaken by your behavior.

Now, I do want to say this with real honesty. There are times I have had huge things in my life go terribly wrong, and I prayed and asked God, and I cannot tell you why he didn’t answer. I cannot always tell you why God doesn’t answer some things that seem genuinely noble, great, honest, and serious. It is not always because you’re selfish.

Why God Sometimes Says No

There are a variety of reasons God might say no.

• It could be your passions. Sometimes we are genuinely asking from the wrong place. That is what James is focused on.
• It could be his purpose. Maybe it is not that girl. Not that career. God has a different purpose for your life, and it is not about wrong motives, it is just not his purpose for you.
• It could be the timing. God is not withholding the thing forever. He has been lining up a miracle for you next year. You will miss it if you get it now. Sometimes God says yes. Sometimes God says no. And sometimes God says wait.

Sinful Passions Drive a Lot of People

James is saying that sinful passions, honestly, drive a lot of us. And when they do, we treat Jesus like a genie. If I pray hard enough, you’ve got to do it, God. You have got to give me this because I really want it and I really prayed hard.

And it starts to change the relationship in a negative way.

If your spouse were just there to give to you, at some point, that spouse is going to feel like, “This isn’t a very genuine relationship. All you do is want, want, want, and all I do is give, give, give. What about the love? What about the connection? What about our hearts being together?”

I think about God looking at my life and saying, “Matt, you only come to me when you want something. It doesn’t seem like you ever just want me. You just want what you can get from me.”

We were created for a relationship with God. We were created in the image of God, uniquely as humans, so that we could have relationship with him. Not so that we could get things from him, but so we could get him. That connection is the primary thing we were made for, not the things here on earth. Things come and go. But God is the one thing that endures forever. That is why we were made as eternal souls.

As Timothy Keller wrote:

“The human heart takes good things, like successful careers, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives.”

We think our career, our family, our love, our material possessions can give us significance, security, safety, and fulfillment. But what that means is they have taken the place God should have had.

Safety should be in our eternal security in God as followers of Christ. Heaven is our home. Death is not the end. It is just the end of this life, not the end of our life. We are eternal children of God. Safety is set up in him.

Significance is the same way. My kids have grown and are moving out. My son is actually getting married this Saturday. And when they are gone, my significance is still in Christ. I still have a purpose for living. If you are single and you have never had that love-of-your-life kind of thing, you can live a significant life. But if you make a relationship, a thing, an object, or a career the center of your life, it will let you down. It will disappoint you.

God was meant to be the center of our lives.

So How Do We Get Over the Genie Mentality?

Here are two ways to get over it.

1. Adopt a Kingdom Mentality

As a follower of Christ, we step from the world and its ambitions, goals, targets, priorities, and passions into the kingdom of God. When we believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that the price for our sins has been covered and paid for, we step into his kingdom.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

The Greek word there is zeteo, and it means an ardent, passionate pursuit. Just say: I am going to ardently pursue the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which is the moral code of the kingdom, the kingdom purposes.

The kingdom of God is God’s grand scheme on earth to reach all those who are far from Christ, and to allow them to know that there is a God who loves them and sent his Son to pay the ultimate penalty for the sins they committed. You are presenting that kingdom and living out that code within this world.

And here is what he says happens for kingdom-minded people: all these things will be added to you. He had given a list before that of things the world worries about, what to eat, what to drink, what to wear. He says the people with no connection to God are always worried about those same things. But for those who seek the kingdom first, the things you need will be added.

Now, will it be the same list? Probably not. Why? Because your list has changed because your kingdom priorities have changed.

Your prayer list matches your priorities. You had a world priority, so you had a world prayer list. Now you have a kingdom of God priority, so you have a kingdom of God prayer list.

• How can I live with such honor and integrity that people will see you and you will be honored?
• How do I raise my children so they know and love God?
• How do I love my wife as Christ loved me and gave his life for me?

You start praying for different things because you are in a different kingdom.

Your prayer list tells which kingdom you are living in.

God answers his kingdom prayers, not your kingdom prayers. He answers the heavenly kingdom prayers. Sometimes, some of the things we are asking are not kingdom prayers. They are not what God wants.

Maybe just make a list and say, “These are the things I have been asking for. Here is how they fit a kingdom purpose, and I did not have to twist or stretch it to make it work. It really is what God wants.”

R.C. Sproul said it clearly:

“Our comfort is not the ultimate goal of the universe.”

But our prayer list kind of suggests that sometimes that is exactly what we think. Make my life good. Make it comfortable. I want everything to come true for me.

What does God love most? When his children come and ask for things, or when his children come to just hang, just to be with him, not to ask anything?

Think about all the years your kids were growing up. You have so many memories of them begging for things in the grocery store. And you also remember the moments when they piled on your lap on the couch, when they jumped on your back a time or two too hard and you had to roll them off. But you would go back to those moments, the cuddles, the holds, the hugs, not the grocery store line.

That is what God wants. Connection. Relationship. He wants us to just want to be with him.

2. Abide in Christ

This gets to the heart of how we actually change what we want.

Maybe you are sitting there thinking: “This all sounds great, but I still want everything I wanted just as much as I wanted it before you said any of this. How do I change what I want? How do I become more flexible?”

That is where Jesus addresses this in John 15. He says:

“If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”

The word abide in the Greek means a long, enduring presence with. A persistent, ongoing connection.

So how do you do that practically?

• Your prayer time might take a little longer and move a little slower.
• You might turn the radio off in the car and concentrate on the fact that God is with you in that car, allowing his presence to be there.
• You open up the Bible, not trying to race through a chapter, but maybe reading half a verse and just stopping. “Wow, God. I am so not that person. I should be that.” And God says, “Yeah, you weren’t that way to your wife this week, were you? You weren’t that way to your kids.”

If you abide in him, his words start to abide in you. They will literally dwell within your life consistently, in an ongoing and pervasive measure. And when his words abide in you like that, what can you begin to do? Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

How many of you like the second half of that verse? Sure. But the first half calls us to live in an abiding relationship with Christ until what we ask for sounds like the words of Christ himself.

When his words are saturating your life, your requests start to sound like what he would want you to request. It sounds like him asking for things for you because you are praying in line with his will.

That is probably why some people have so many prayers answered. They have been abiding. They have had a kingdom-first mentality. And since they have been seeking the kingdom first and abiding in Christ, their prayers are biblical, kingdom-minded prayers for their children, for their friends, for their family. And the God who loves them, who is their father, who wants to answer their requests, looks down and says, it is not about personal passion and selfishness. It is about blessing others, loving others, the kingdom of God first, the word of Christ dwelling in them. And everything they ask, he can answer yes with an exclamation point.

That is the kind of prayers you can begin to pray. That is the walk you are called to walk in.

Prayer Is Not a Technique for Getting Things from God

Dallas Willard wrote in The Divine Conspiracy:

“Prayer is not a technique for getting things from God. It’s the practice of living with God.”

I will say that one more time because it is worth sitting with.

Prayer is not a technique for getting things from God. It is the practice of living with God.

If you began this week to slow your prayer times down, and if you get nothing else done in prayer, practice the presence of God. That is actually a book by Brother Lawrence, and it is worth reading.

Presence in your prayer time should come before petition in your prayer time. Practice the presence of God before you begin to make petitions. And if you don’t have enough time, walk away from having just been with God, fuller of God himself than of the things God could have offered you through that prayer time.

If you have never known the God of the universe, if you have never known the God who sent his Son to die on the cross for you and dearly loves you, whether you love him or hate him or reject him or deny him, it does not change him. He is immutable. He is unchanging.

If you have never experienced his presence in your life, there is no way to describe it other than to say it is the purpose of your existence. You were made to walk, to talk, to connect with the God who created you. That is why he put Adam and Eve in the garden. For relationship. That is why he created them in his image. For relationship.

To rush past the purpose of your creation to get things from your creator is to miss the whole point.

I would rather be satisfied in God himself than in the things God could give me. If you gave me a choice and said, “You are going to get nothing from your wife except for the joy of being with her. She is not going to make a meal, serve you coffee, do laundry or dishes or cook. You just get a choice: her presence, or she can make all those things for you and be absent from your life,” I hope you love your spouse enough to say, “I would much rather have her presence than the things she could do for me.”

I would much rather have the presence of God in my life than the things he could do for me.

The beautiful thing is you do not have to choose one or the other. But I want to encourage you to prioritize one. Just say: I want to be with you. I want to know you. I want to experience you.

If you want to take your next step in faith or learn more about what we believe at Eagle Creek Church, we would love to connect with you. Visit us at eaglecreekchurch.com or join us any Sunday morning.