After I posted the last blog entry I realized that some of you students that read this might not totally understand what "the prosperity gospel" is. In essence it is a distortion of what we would call the real gospel and wrongly puts the emphasis of God's goodness on His ability to bless us materially and physically. It basically makes God out to be our genie in a bottle. We say jump, He says how high... all we need is faith to make God pour out His abundance of blessings. It is heresy. It is wrong.
God does desire to bless those that follow Him. But that blessing may come in the form of suffering. God may use the taking of your health and wealth to ween you off of dependance on the things of this world and prepare you for eternity. The gosple is a call to lay down your life, not a salespitch to fill your life with more stuff.
If the prosperity gospel is accurate than all the Christians across the globe right now that are sacrificing to proclaim the gospel to unreached peoples are dumb... Maybe they can say with the Apostle Paul, "we are most to be pitied." I however think they are heroes of the faith.
Please do not buy into the prosperity gospel! It is very popular in western Christianity because it appeals to our desire to have a ton of stuff. It is what our itching ears would love to hear. And it can sneak in even to those that seem the most godly. Churches buy into it when they care more about their campuses and programs than they do the gospel. People buy into it when they would rather have Jesus give them their desires than have Him demand their lives.
Here is an insightful video from Desiring God. Hope you enjoy.
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