Incomplete Messages Lead to Unmet Expectations

Not Like Anyone Else – Part 6

Have you ever wondered what’s missing?  You tried reading your bible everyday.  That didn’t work.  You tried going to church every Sunday.  That didn’t work.  You even tried praying everyday and that didn’t work.  You ask yourself is there a problem with me or is this church thing not intended to work?  The real question on the table is “why am I not seeing the results I expected?”

Is it Something You Did or Didn’t Do?
Many believers today have fallen prey to settling that their faith isn’t really supposed to work.  They’ve become okay with the church falling short of their expectations.  
They go to church and their marriage falls apart.  
They volunteer in the nursery and their children stray away.  
They give their tithe and end up in a financial crisis.  
While all this is happening they receive messages that tell them why it’s not working out for them.  It all points back to something a person is doing or didn’t do.  Then you hear these words, “it’s an attack of the enemy.”  Does this sound familiar?  
Contrary Results
You think you’re taught the right stuff, but for some reason the results show something contrary.
What happens when a person who is unqualified tries to teach another a lesson?  What if I tried to teach you how to drive, not ever have driven myself?  There are a couple things that might go lacking: (1) the person being taught will be deficient because of the teacher’s lack of experience, and (2) the teacher can’t teach what they don’t know.  The same is true with leaders who are so called experts in areas such as health, marriage, prayer, relationships, family and finances when God never asked them to be.

Exceeding Your Expectations
Let me pause for just a second with some left-sided thinking. 
What would make a believer think just because the devil attacks, your life has to experience calamity.  Forget what you’ve been taught and think about this for a moment.  God is bigger than your calamity.  There is nothing the enemy, the devil, yo mamma, your mother-in-law, your daddy, your boss at work….or any one else can do to you that God can’t fix or make better.  In fact once you connect to the right church, only after you get connected with God yourself, then and only then will God exceed your expectations.  

Bad Teaching Leads to Bad Learning
What if what you’ve been taught is all wrong?  How would you know if what you’re taught is right, wrong, good or bad for you?  It might not be your fault but what you know might be bad information.  You’re taught by others, who have bad information.  When this happens you have unexpected results.  
You pay your tithe with the wrong attitude.  
You give for selfish reasons.  
Your motivation for serving isn’t pure.  
Your lifestyle becomes nothing more than a show, an act you’re putting on.
When you eat a plateful of bad information, you digest bad information and you become what you eat.  

Incomplete Conditioning
In this way, ordinary people fall prey to this common dilemma.  When you’ve been conditioned by what I’m calling not wrong, but incomplete information, you have unintended results and unmet expectations. Any time you have incomplete nourishment, you have an unhealthy spiritual diet.  Change what you’re hearing and pick up some uncommon practices, then you can have complete nourishment and a healthy spiritual diet.

Now for some right-sided thinking.
There are churches out there that embrace God’s presence and as a result the people live in peace.  There are believers out there who get their prayers answered.  There are Christians who have God’s favor on their lives and no matter what’s thrown their way they come out better.  If I were you I’d get away from the “common”, ordinary, small letter ‘c’ Christians who aren’t seeing God-like results in their lives and get around those that do.

The Complete Picture
The majority teach messages that are not wrong, but incomplete.  Any church left to its own doesn’t have the benefit of having the complete picture.  You need other churches, other messages, other believers so that you can benefit from other parts of the body of Christ.  There’s no way you can understand all the parts, but you can benefit from them all.  We need the family of faith to have a complete picture.  You know longer have to settle with having an incomplete picture, today because of technology you have the option of getting a better picture which leads to exceeded expectations.