To a Christian, praying to God is privilege, a blessing, and a Biblically
defined responsibility. We are called to pray. But a genre of literature exists
that I call “prayer secrets.” Practitioners claim to have discovered new avenues
of prayer that can create power, excitement, success, and even new revelations
from God. These “prayer secrets” add unbiblical practices and claims to prayer
in the hope of spicing up the topic to make it more interesting. And this is not
a new development; mystical practices have been brought into the church under
the guise of prayer since medieval times.
However, since these teachings change in form and packaging, I will review
three books about prayer and “experiencing God” subjectively. What they have in
common is a form of pietism that promises better things than to go before the
throne of grace to find help in time of need, as well as other basic Biblical
teachings on prayer.
Experiencing God by Henry T. Blackaby
Blackaby’s book, co-authored by Claude King, promises readers that they can
come to know God by experience and come to know God’s will beyond what is
revealed in Scripture, thereby living out a life full of adventure.1 Blackaby promises
his readers that they will, among other things, learn to hear God speaking to
them and learn to identify God’s activities.2 He promises to alleviate their problem
of being frustrated with their Christian experience.
Experiencing God does start out with some basic facts about the gospel
and has a place for people to check to indicate that they have made a “decision
for Jesus.” I am glad he told his readers about such things as sin and
repentance but am disappointed in the “make a decision for Jesus” approach. We
have addressed that elsewhere.3 But having checked the appropriate box, the reader is
quickly ushered into the realm of subjectivity that permeates Blackaby’s
approach from beginning to end. For example, we are urged to evaluate our
“present experience with God.”4 However, I have known people who are totally deceived
and in bondage to false doctrine who are very excited about their experience
with God, so such evaluation doesn’t do much good. For example, I once met a
pastor who just returned from the Toronto laughing revival and was so very
excited because he had seen “God” cause people to bark like dogs and quack like
ducks. That is just one example why what one thinks about his own “experience
with God” is immaterial. What we need to know are the terms God has laid down
for knowing Him and walking faithfully with Him. Continue at Bob DeWaay
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