Live Free with Josh Howerton - Vending Machine Mentality | Ep. 88 | Wednesday June 7, 2023

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

In this episode, Pastor Mike discusses the "Life From God" posture, which views God as a divine vending machine. This entitlement and lack of gratitude can lead to a belief in the prosperity gospel. Rather than seeking God for what He can do, we should enjoy God for who He is. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, hope you're having a good day. Maybe it's just getting started or maybe it's coming to a close or maybe you're somewhere in between. Thanks for joining us for the Daily Drive podcast.

My name is Mike and we just spend a few minutes every day trying to get to know God a little better. And no matter where you are on this journey, whether you're just starting out or whether you've been walking with God for a long time, man. I can't tell you how grateful I am for you. And I'm grateful for the way that God meets us right where we are at this time. We've been talking this week about the different ways that people relate to God, and we're taking these five different postures from a book by Skye Jahani called With, in which he takes five different prepositions under, over, from, for, and with to describe these different postures people take when it comes to relating to God.

And we've already talked about life under God and life over God in the last two episodes. If you missed either one of those, you can go back and catch up. And today we're talking about one that probably everyone, of us has experienced. The posture is this life from God. This is the posture that views God as a divine vending machine. You just punch in the right number and out comes whatever you want. You remember the old animated Aladdin movie, the Blue Jeannie that was voiced over by Robin Williams where he sang a little song, Mr. Aladdin, sir, what will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jod it down, you ain't never had a friend like me.

Dot, dot, da, da. Remember that guy? Sorry about that. But that's the way some of us have viewed God. We expect things from him. And this life from God thinking is just, man, it is fueled by our consumer culture. I'm just wondering for my own sanity, have any of you ever been talking about something? And then you start scrolling through your social media feed, and there's an ad about what you were just talking about.

I mean, it's weird. And it's a little creepy. They know what we're saying. They know what we're searching for, and so we are bombarded anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 ads every day, all telling us that we're lacking in some way. So this life from God, it fits perfectly with our consumeristic mindset. Now, to be clear, scripture reminds us, repeatedly that everything we have comes from God. Jesus' brother James tells us, says whatever's good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God,

our father who created all the lights in the heaven, he never changes or casts a shifting shadow. And Jesus himself tells us to ask our good father for whatever we need. But this life from God posture has a tendency to expect things from God, to live with a sense of entitlement instead of a heart of gratitude, instead of being thankful for God's presence, we expect his constant provision. In its extreme form, it's known as the Prosperity Gospel, also known as the health, wealth gospel, or the name and claiming gospel, and there's lots of people out there promoting that kind of stuff.

I think that's why Jesus warned us how easily our hearts can be duped and stolen by that kind of thinking. You see, the danger is this. God stops becoming our treasure, and he starts becoming only how we acquire our treasure. In his books, Guy Jahan, he writes this, Life from God is so appealing because it doesn't ask us to change. Our comforts, our values, our wants, are projecting

onto God, and we seek religious systems that affirm those desires. Life from God is nothing more than consumerism with a Jesus sticker slapped on the bumper. You know, Jesus told a story one time to illustrate God's heart toward people. It's a pretty famous story known as the parable of the prodigal son,

and it shows God's character as a loving father who wants every single one of us to come home. No matter how far we've run or what we've done, man, God is waiting, longing, hoping that we will come to our senses and head toward home. And when we do, he runs toward us, embraces us, calls us his son, causes us his daughter. I mean, it's an amazing story that reveals the heartbeat of God toward people like you and me.

And it is also a vivid illustration of this life from God mindset. The younger son of the story, the prodigal who takes his inheritance early and blows it all in a wild lifestyle, this kid valued his father, gifts much more than he valued his father. He wanted everything that his dad could give him, and once that happened, the relationship was no longer necessary. And it's no different with us. We can seek a relationship with God as a means to an end.

We can value what the father can do for us, but not the father himself. And when we fixate only on what we can get from God, we fail to experience this peace and presence in our lives. There's a collection of songs in the Old Testament called the book of Psalms. So many great lyrics. And I ran across one the other day that really spoke to me.

I just love what David writes in Psalm 27. He says, this one thing, one thing I ask of the Lord. And this is what I seek. And I wonder if we had a chance to ask God like one thing. I wonder how many of our requests would be, hey, God, here's the one thing. I need you to do this. Need you tell me this.

Want you to fix this? Change this. Work this out. Give me this. give me that. David says, I have asked from the Lord just one thing, and that I will seek. And here's what he asked for. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. He says, I don't really want anything from him. I just want to get to know him. He says, God, listen, if I just get one request,

here's what it is. The only thing I want from you is you. If I get you, if I get to know him, if I at one request. My one request is, I just want you in my life. That's my one request. That's my one ask. I just want to be close to you. And gang, I'm discovering that it's out of that relationship, that desire to know him, that intimate relationship, that life is all that it can be. So today, man, let's just dive in with a grateful heart instead of a sense of entitlement. Let's not demand or expect things from God today. Let's just open the gift that has already given us the gift. The gift of himself. Enjoy doing life today, not under, not over, or from God. Just be with him today. And as you do that, man, I hope you have an awesome day. We'll see you back tomorrow.

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