The God Card – It Has The Potential To End The Game

This week a friend and I were engaging in conversation and one of the topics that came up is the “God Card.” The God card is often used by people to end conversations, to get their own way, to see at best, what they really believe to be true or truth. A God Card is used to “put an end to things.”

It came up because I am seeing a lot more people “play the card” in an effort to do what they want or NOT do what they need to. It is often a way to shift accountability.

“God told me we should make my announcement first on Sunday morning.” Is it passion and a heart or is it a manipulation, a power play?

Because I believe in the prophetic and operate prophetically, I get to see the card played and with the often devastating results. I see relationships that end or begin by the playing for the card. I see jobs taken or quit by the playing of the card. I see hurt and pain and disenchantment. This can be a “hard card.”

Let me be clear, God is a God of community, love and grace. He is not breaking up marriages, putting kids in to welfare by quitting jobs or any of that. Pure religion undefiled is taking care of widows and orphans and living your lives ABOVE reproach. Conversely, I am not talking about being a legalist. I am however suggesting that you ALLOW God to move through your life in accordance to His nature and His principles.

“God told me to do this.”
“Okay, but you do see that doing that will cause you to lose your residence (your car, your family, your job.”) and make life difficult.”
“Yeah, I know my God told me to do this.”
Too often somewhere down the road I hear God “changed” His mind and they are doing something else OR the very scenario I was seeing is playing out.

Let me be clear. If you choose ministry over marriage at some point you will see the error of this thought process. True ministry is not a job but developed out of love, relationship and grace. True ministry is not “schizophrenic” in nature but has His character throughout it. If you choose 80 hours of work, your family will suffer.

When it involves church or life, making hard decisions is not new. The entire book of Acts is about explosive church growth and life with God. I get it. I understand. Paul had to deal with the God Card. In Acts 15 some leaders were teaching that circumcision (one of the many laws of the Old Testament) was necessary for salvation. The folks were sure this was the way. The answer. But Paul and Barnabas show up and disagree. They debated. They respected one another. They were persuasive about evidence of God not just His voice. Both sides spoke. They showed evidence, scripture. They were humble. Finally in Acts 15:28 the words “it seemed” appear. No “God told us” or “God has said” or “This is law.” No God Card!

Stop throwing the God Card! Start engaging in dialog. Stop ending relationship and start growing relationship.

In all the years my friend and I have walked together, I doubt there have been 3 times on either side of the coin where “God told me this” and suggested that ends the discussion have occurred.

Real church has real people being perfected by a PERFECT GOD. When you remove the often divisive God Card from the deck, you may not be playing with a “full deck” but you are still involved in the friendly game, where all parties play the hand they have been dealt.