Joel Osteen--Popular prosperity preacher--reveals his shallowness and his error in his Tweets. Here's just two recent ones:
"When you face the greatest pressure, remember that you are close to your victory."
What an encouraging sentiment right? The problem is, it isn't biblical; it isn't true. There are centuries of Christians--faithful, spirit filled Christians the writer of Hebrews calls "The great cloud of witnesses" who faced tremendous pressures and they ended in pain, sorrow, torture, and utter disarray. the biblical truth is that we live on a broken planet that is currently Satan's domain and bad things happen to good people all the time. It is isn't a new situation; read Asaph's complaints about it all in Psalm 73! So while Joel is out there filling people with hope, it is false hope and paints a very wrong picture of life and of God.
Again Joel Tweets:
"When God hears you speak His promises, He sets the miracle into motion. He changes and moves things on your behalf."
Seriously? Joel is a purveyor of what some call the "Name it, Claim it" brand of Christianity. It also is a counterfeit. All you need do is look around you and think of all the faithful, wonderful people of God who have been treated unjustly, even criminally, and never have received any semblance of justice. No miracles there. The problem is that Joel confuses the promises of the new heaven and new earth promised to every believer--in eternity!
So he sets people up for failure for when their miracle doesn't happen, they are left with only one answer; THEY are the problem. So the prosperity message sounds good, feels good, brings people in, but in the end is nothing more than a vapor that blows away when tried.
Many more answers to this heinous counterfeit in my book The Proper Pursuit of Prosperity!
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