When faced with a problem, the typical Christian can react in a few different ways: With extreme passivity — “everything is God’s will; he’ll help if he wants to” With self-abasement, doubt — “Why is this happening? Am I being punished?” With anger and resentment — “How could God do this to me! This is bogus!” While all of these positions look at the problem from a slightly different angle, they all produce the same result; these ideas immobilize you. Think about it; if you believe that absolutely everything is God’s will, then you will never resist anything, because all of it is his will. So when spiritual forces attack, you’ll just roll over and accept it because, hey, it’s God’s will. Similarly, if you believe that negative situations are God’s punishment for some wrong you’ve committed, then you still will not resist, because you deserve what is happening… it’s your punishment after all. So you’ll just suffer through the pain. And the third idea is even more straightforward. You just directly accuse God of causing the problem. All of these ideas keep you in a mental and spiritual box— never able to move forward, because moving forward requires the power of God. But if you see God as the source of your suffering or somehow complicit in it, then there’s no reason to even ask him for help! Looking at things this way can seem rather hopeless; but all is not as it appears. The scriptures show us a different perspective; one not of hopeless reassignment to loss, but one of strength, power, and victory.
There’s an interesting allegory within the books of Galatians and Hebrews, which speaks of two different “mountains”. One mountain is Sinai, which represents the Old Covenant; the Law of Moses, with it’s many rules and regulations. The other mountain is Zion, and represents the New Covenant; the Grace of Christ. The question in the title of today’s study, is meant to be one of self-reflection and examination: which mountain have you come to? And as we look at these mountains today, we will see that only one of these two mountains is where God can be found today… and only one of these two mountains leads to life. Join me today, as we examine this important topic.
Many times when asking God for something, we expect to see immediate results. There’s nothing wrong with that really – especially when dealing with an all powerful God who lives outside of time. However, when immediate results are not apparent, we as humans start covering and start coming up with all manner of reasons and explanations for why our request was not granted. There is something wrong with this. Because right from the start the assumption is that our requests were not granted, and then based on that faulty assumption we begin conceiving all-manner of anti-Biblical doctrine to try and make sense of our present experience – and the faith of many people has been shipwrecked as a result of such practices. What we will be studying today is what the Bible actually says about requesting things, faith and receiving. The true words spoken by Jesus may surprise you. Once we see the truth about what Jesus taught, it will broaden the horizon of our thinking and our expectations when it comes to believing and receiving.