How To Avoid The Landmine of Presumption

Everyone has blindspots and we all have been presumptuous at one point or another. However, leaders must take great care to avoid the landmine of presumption because too much rides on a leader’s decisions and actions. Whether it’s your personal, business, or ministry life, toying with presumption can lead to failure, set backs, and heart aches.

At the basic level, presumption is assuming or believing something that is often not fully established. Spiritually, it is asking God to bless you while knowingly disobeying His clear commands. It is willfully sinning and akin to hypocrisy. Presumptuous prayers can actually be abominations to God and will not be heard. “Whoever turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9) If you don’t want your prayers to be detestable in God’s sight, then beware of presumption! Learn how to avoid the landmine of presumption.

King David, God’s man, understood this and prayed, “Keep Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then I will be upright, and I will be innocent from the great transgression (blatant rebellion).” (Psalm 19:13) That is why most of the blessings of God are conditional. They require obedience – complying with God’s will, which demonstrates true love and faith on our part. (See 1 John 2:3; 3:22; 5:2, 3) Love is demonstrated by obedience and trust. Faith is taking God at His word – believing and expecting God to do what He promises by His word.

1. Stay Humble. “Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you… Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.” (James 4:7, 8, 10)

2. Don’t tell God When and How to answer your prayers. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will guide you on the right paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

3. Don’t seek for signs and wonders or the spectacular and fabulous display of God’s might in answering your prayers. While God does from time-to-time answer prayers in such manner, He is not your genie in a bottle nor in show business. Be very careful with this mindset because Satan also work deceitful signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9). If you hang your hat on always seeing or having some miraculous manifestation, you will open your life to deception and working of evil spirits. Plain obedience to God’s word trumps miracle-chasing anytime. It’s safer to trust in God’s word than to rely even on miracles. Waking up every day is a miracle. The birth of a child is miracle. People get sensational with chasing miracles because they always want the next “spiritual high.” Even Jesus waned against seeking after signs and wonders (Matthew 12:39: 16:4). He also said many who performed great miraculous feats will not be in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21-28). He was here teaching that it’s better to hear and apply His teachings rather than hearing only and not obeying — even if one claims to be able to do the miraculous.

4. Don’t make empty promises to God in exchange for answering prayers. Sometimes we do this but don’t think deeply about what kind of vow (promise) we are really making. God does not delight in such actions (Ecclesiastes 5:1-6; Matthew 5:37; James 5:12). Beware of asking Him to bless you only as a temporary relief from discomfort or pain knowing full well you have no intentions of changing your life.

5. Don’t ask God to bypass or compromise His own Word and Laws so you can have your way. Our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) so not every desire of the human heart is a pure one. We all battle with selfishness. That is why we need to humble ourself to God’s way of answering our prayers. He will not be trifled with when we have unholy motives (James 4:3).

6. Beware of being self-righteous when God answers your prayers. It can lead to pride which can result in your biggest downfall (Proverbs 16:18). When you read books of Kings and Chronicles in the Bible, it won’t take you long to realize that many of Israel’s Kings fell on the heel of success, prosperity, and God’s blessings. When they were weak they seem to be faithful. But when they became powerful and wealthy through God’s favor, they committed some of the gravest atrocities mentioned in the Scriptures.

7. Don’t attribute all positive answers to prayers to your praying. God sometimes answers prayers on behalf of others or to fulfill a prior promise or a general promise that is not dependent upon you. Another side of self-righteousness is to think that because God is moving in your life, business, or ministry that you can do no wrong. The tendency here is to think that God is blessing you because you are super-holy and righteous. This attitude also leads to many downfalls. Hence the biblical admonition, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12) When things are going well, people tend to slack off doing what pleases God. They pray less, read the Bible less, and rationalize sin in their life. They reason that since things are going so well and my prayers seem to be answered positively, then they’re on good terms with the Lord. This is not always true. Don’t fall for this. The ancient Israelites thought this too, but Moses quickly rebuked them, saying, “Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to his oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Be certain then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land as a reward for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Deuteronomy 9:5-6) God also blessed and answered prayers for the Israelites for the sake of His faithful servant David, not necessarily because of the petitioner or the nation deserved it. That’s grace! (See 1 Kings 11:32; 15:4; 2 Kings 19:34; 20:6; Isaiah 37:35)

1.Now let’s put it in action. How have you been presumptuous lately?

2.What are you willing to do from this list of how to avoid the landmine of presumption?

3. Can you add 3 more tips on how to avoid the landmine of presumption?