How to Know If You’re Using God

It was the first and only time I’ve ever been called to perform an exorcism. It wasn’t a person that was possessed, the frantic lady on the phone informed me, it was her house. It had not one but two spirits. She had already tried a medium, a Catholic priest, and the strategic placement of crosses. You know you’re desperate when your last best hope is a Baptist pastor. I called a young man I was mentoring, and we drove to her house. We figured, if nothing else, we could tell her about the Lord who has subjected all “angels, authorities, and powers” to himself through his death and resurrection (1 Peter 3:22).

Upon arrival, she came to the slow realization that we weren’t there to cast out any spirits. We told her instead that she could find salvation from every threat, real or imagined, in Christ. We told her of his love and what he had done in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension to save humanity. But she just wanted the spirits out. She wasn’t interested in devoting herself to the one with “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). She seemed disappointed as we drove off.

The lady we met that day wanted access to God’s power, but she wasn’t interested in God. She wanted the benefits without the beliefs, the perks minus the person. She sought to leverage what God could give her apart from what God demands. In short, she wanted to use God to get her request filled, but then she wanted to put him back on the shelf after she was done.

We see a similar thing occurring in 1 Samuel 4. Israel is in a sad state. Led astray by selfish shepherds, the fledgling nation faced the more powerful Philistines on the battlefield and were defeated. In response, they sent for the ark of the covenant from Shiloh. Ignoring all that the ark represented—namely, their covenant with God—they futilely treated the sacred object as some kind of charm that would save them from the power of their enemies. They, too, were more interested in using God than worshiping him, and they too were disappointed in the outcome. They were severely routed as thirty thousand soldiers lost their lives. It seems God would rather suffer humiliation at the hands of his enemies than allow his people to disregard his name. Unlike the dumb idols of the nations, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). He doesn’t passively go along with our plans for him.

This episode isn’t the only instance in the Bible of human beings attempting to use the living God for their own purposes. Jesus rebuked those who sought him because he gave them bread rather than realizing that his provision of bread was a signpost to his ability to satisfy the eternal hunger of their souls through his own person (John 6:26). And, of course, who could forget Simon, who tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit with money (Acts 8:9-24)? Humanity’s attempt to use God seems to be more of a perpetual temptation than an isolated instance.

And yet, I’ve never heard anyone admit that they were guilty of using God. We scoff at prosperity gospel preachers and others who so blatantly pursue God for their own selfish gain, but we’re slow to consider our own subtler forms of the same offense. The shift in focus may seem small. We begin to think in terms of maximizing our own potential with Christ’s help. We comb the Bible, not to meet Christ there, but to locate strategies and techniques to help us live the blessed life. We pursue our own goals and ask God to bless them on the back end.

How would we know if we’re using God? When it comes to evaluating our own heart motives, there’s no test strip to discern infection. We’re perpetually devising strategies of self-deception in an all-out effort to convince ourselves we’re alright.

While the following list of questions offers no guarantee of certitude, I pray it will lead to some degree of spiritual discernment as we seek to worship God rather than use him.

Do you get more excited about Christ’s blessings than you do about Christ himself?

Does your devotion to Christ ramp up when you want something from him?

Do you get angry at God when things don’t go your way?

Do you ignore wise counsel? (If you miss the connection here, think about what we’re doing when we insist on doing our own thing against wise counsel to do otherwise. The counsel of others prevents us from equating our own wills with God’s.)

Are you constantly looking for new techniques and “how-to” plans?

Do you use Scripture or submit to it? Do you seek Bible passages to encourage you in your own story or do you approach the Bible as a story about Christ in which you are invited to enter?

Do you have an overly specific vision of your ideal future? God calls his people to live daily by faith and rarely reveals overly specific plans. Setting goals is wise and good, but we must always beware of the human tendency to co-opt God in our plans rather than praying, “Your will be done.”

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