Now Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus; for he had wanted to see Him for a long time, because he had been hearing about Him and was hoping to see some sign performed by Him. (Luke 23:8)
Christ’s earthly ministry was marked by people who believed He existed, even believed in His supernatural miracles… and yet only cared about Him as far as He would satisfy their needs or curiosity. Herod’s motivation to see Christ is a perfect example of this – He had an opportunity to speak to God, yet His focus was purely on being entertained. Herod, like many today, saw Christ as a spectacle for his own pleasure rather than the King of the universe who deserves to be worshipped.
Today, we can be just as guilty as people like Herod. We may still believe Christ is our Savior, but that doesn’t stop us from focusing on the parts of Him that satisfy our needs or curiosity, rather than focusing on our worship of Him. Here are 3 ways that even followers of Jesus Christ can focus on the wrong thing, finding excitement from what He gives us rather than who He is to us.
We want Jesus for what He gives us
You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:3-4)
Perhaps the greatest example we have of this is the Prosperity Gospel (or the Word of Faith movement). In short, this belief centers around the idea that it’s our Heavenly Father’s greatest desire to give good gifts to His children. And as selfish human beings, our idea is that “good gifts’ are basically anything we desire. Whether it’s wealth, material goods, relationships, or healing, people spend years of their lives (and thousands of dollars) believing that if they just have enough faith (and give enough money), God will reward them richly.
What few Christians realize is how much this false gospel has crept its way in to even the most Biblically-sound churches. While we may not be so bold as to say that we deserve to be rich and healthy, we fundamentally treat Christ the same way these false preachers teach about Him – we treat our relationship with Christ as a transaction. God easily becomes a cosmic vending machine. If we aren’t careful, the Almighty soon turns into little more than our means of getting things we want.
The simplest way we often see this is when we pray for one thing, God doesn’t give it, and we become angry, depressed, anxious, or have any number of other reactions that aren’t grounded in faith and trust. We may say we’re trusting Him, and giving Him a situation, but we see the truth of our words by how we react.
“God, I gave this situation to you, so why am I still worried?”
“I trusted you with my job, so why am I now unemployed?”
“I prayed for my mom’s healing if it was your will, so why did you let her die?”
In situations like these, we see what’s truly behind our hearts. We aren’t holding God in reverence because we’re discouraged that He didn’t reward us for what we did. We may trust and pray, but we do so with the silent assumption that God will reward it in the way we desire. We treat faith like a dollar bill inserted into a vending machine, and we want to talk to the manager when the machine doesn’t hold up its end of the transaction.
We often see our view of God when genuine trials come. Whether they occur once or affect us for a lifetime, how we treat Christ can be see by how we react to the world around us. We know a life with Him won’t be easy, but surely… surely there’s some benefit to giving up things of the world, right? What’s the point if we miss out on all the good things everyone else has?
So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the small boats, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus. When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?”
Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” (John 6:23-27)
Again, we may not be willing to say it outright, but we all know we’ve been there. We know God takes care of our needs, but we so easily make the mistake of assuming that what we want is what we need. We want Christ to fill our bellies while we miss out on the true riches we receive when we become children of God.
In short, we get excited for the gifts Christ can give us, rather than for who He is.
[This was originally going to be a single article, but it turned out to be much longer than I wanted to post. So look out for Part 2 on Friday!]
