All Church of God members, past and present, should be dumbfounded that we have in our very midst the most amazing man that God ever imagined into being. No man has walked this earth who is more attuned to God and filled with such amazing wisdom than we have in our very own Great Bwana Bob Mzungu of Africa and his few Caucasians. Never has a more spiritually perfect man ever walked in the midst of us regaling us with profound insights into scripture and the Christian way of life. Even Jesus pales in comparison with our Great Bwana because Jesus spoke in parables while the Great Bwana Bob speaks the clear truth. No human has ever had such a divine connection to the Holy as our Great Bwana has with an inside track into how things ought to be.
Sadly though, incapable of having many original thoughts in his head, he has to copy and paste old Worldwide Church of God articles to prove how attuned he is to the truth once revealed to the old WCG.
This time the topic is prayer.
You remember the prayer sermons we had in the olden days of yore. The only way the god of the church was ever going to hear one of your pitiful prayers was if you spent one hour on your knees begging for forgiveness for some sin that you just knew that god was pissed off about. Long endless hours were spent begging god for mercy just so your pitifulness could be laid bare.
Even our corporate prayers were unable to heal Loma Armstrong because we were all spiritually backed up in our lives and that god was really pissed at us and the church. Though I imagine, it was probably pissed off because it had given Herbert many opportunities to take his wife to the hospital and get her blocked up bowels treated.
Anyway, these are some of the things Clayton Steep wrote that the Great Bwana copied:
Prayer is not an isolated and optional religious exercise. It is a vital factor, significant in determining our eternal destiny!
The supreme purpose that God is working out here on earth is the expansion of His Kingdom – His Family. He wants to make out of human beings immortal members of His ruling Family.
These must be individuals who, by their own free choice, come to fully support God’s way of doing things, who want to think as God thinks, perceive as God perceives, react as God reacts. They must want with all their hearts to be involved in whatever God is doing.
Such an attitude is essential in order to maintain, throughout eternity, harmony and peace in the God Family.
Talk about putting the pressure on church members! Don't pray the way the church expects and you will never be made into a god or goddess and be part of the divine family. Your godhood is at stake and the harmony of eternity is at great peril if you do not do so!
You also must always remember that you are nothing more than a test object placed on this earthy proving ground to determine your potential godhood status.
God has made us temporarily human. This existence is a testing ground so our Creator can try us and know what is in our hearts, whether or not He can trust us to live by His rules and laws (Deuteronomy 8:2). He must be sure. He is looking at us, closely examining our actions and reactions.
God takes note of what we say when we are talking to Him. Of course He knows our hearts and intents. And the Holy Spirit helps where we cannot adequately express ourselves (Romans 8:26-27). Still, as Jesus showed, the actual words we use are also important, and they ought to be meaningful, rather than vain repetitions (Matthew 6:7).
While not all of Steep's article is bad, the theology behind it all is. His article ends with this quote about praying for others.
One of Jesus’ parables was given to show us we ought to be persistent in prayer, that we “always ought to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1-8).
Have you ever “lost heart” because you, along with others, have been asked to pray for someone, for example, who is terminally ill, and the person dies anyway? Have you immediately assumed something was wrong with your prayers, with your exercise of faith?
Maybe there was. On the other hand, that may not always be so. Maybe your prayers were what they should be. Maybe you did not waver in faith. But maybe enough others did not pray effectively. Did you ever think of that?
In any case, do not lose heart. Keep at it. Try again.
Being able to pray effectively does not come overnight. It has to be worked at. But it is eternally worth the effort, for through prayer you get to know God. And, just as importantly, He gets to know you.
Were church members ever able to do anything right? Imagine praying for someone and then finding out that someone else didn't so God did not care to intervene. How stupid can our theology be?
Some of the most heartfelt prayers uttered to God are things like "Help!" or even "WTF, God!?!?!?!". Those are genuine brutally honest prayers, far more effective than the vain repetitions we heard in opening and closing prayers every Saturday at church.
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