Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Joel O says in "Your Best Life Now":


“Your victory is already on the way.”


"The Proper Pursuit of Prosperity" says--
The “prosperity gospel," promises heaven on earth,
presenting a god who exists to jump
to your side whenever you call, granting whatever whim,
wish, desire, or goal happens to be on your list at the
moment. The only thing that matters to the prosperity
god is that you are happy—however you define happiness—
and he cannot do enough for you to see that come
about. The so-called “good news” of the prosperity gospel
is simply that the reason you are alive is to be happy,
healthy, and materially engorged with all this world has
to offer.

I cannot deny that it is an appealing message because
it fits perfectly with the view du jour of who today’s god
is. It used to be that this god—purposely spelled with a
small “g”—was the preferred deity of the masses, whether
religious or not. Today, it is engulfing even those who see
themselves as members of mainstream Christianity.
So who is the god you worship? Is He the mysterious,
sometimes silent, sometimes gentle, sometimes
hard God of the Scriptures? Is He the God of the Bible
Who cares so much for you that He will, if necessary,
hurt you in order to help you? Or is he the god of a syrupy
love who abandoned his holiness with the passing
centuries, affirming, applauding, or even accommodating
man’s sinful choices? Whatever your dream, whatever
your want, your wish is his command. So who is
the God of heaven? What can we expect from the God
Who became flesh and lived in our place, and where is
the balance?
The balance is found in getting reacquainted with
the God of the Bible and His wonderful but sometimes
hard truth of what we can expect while living in a world
that is ravaged by the effects of sin.

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