Category Archives: Prosperity Gospel

Most professing Christians in America are infected with at least some measure of the health and wealth gospel, said one theologian. That is, believers have no concept of a love and a joy that does not eliminate hardship and heartache, Sam Storms of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City said at a pastors conference this week.

Most professing Christians in America are infected with at least some measure of the health and wealth gospel, said one theologian.

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close John Piper – Why I abominate the prosperity gospelThat is, believers have no concept of a love and a joy that does not eliminate hardship and heartache, Sam Storms of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City said at a pastors conference this week.

“For most professing believers if God is love He must promise to minimize my struggles and maximize my pleasure,” he lamented. Many believe it’s their spiritual birthright to experience comfort and prosperity and that it’s God divine obligation to provide it.

It’s a disease that’s rampant in the culture and in the church. People are inundated with messages from powerbrokers, media, entertainment, TV evangelists and bestselling authors that say joy is inextricably bound up in material prosperity, physical health, relational success and all the comforts and conveniences Western society provides.

For most people, joy and suffering are incompatible, Storms noted.

Thus preachers have a difficult task at hand in communicating to such a culture a genuine joy found in Christ.

The so-called prosperity gospel that teaches wealth and good health is a sign of God’s favor and blessing is prevalent in the church, Storm lamented. Underlining the seriousness of the problematic theology many preachers have picked up, the Oklahoma City pastor called it a “corrosive and disintegrative pox” on the church and “a disease far more infectious and ultimately fatal to the soul than the worst bubonic plague and the affects it might have on the human body.”

“We have to fight this infection in the body of Christ,” he emphatically told pastors at the Desiring God conference in Minneapolis.

But the blame for the rampant “disease” shouldn’t fall on the TV evangelists, Storms noted.

“I want to lay it (the blame) at our feet,” he said.

“It’s the pastors and leaders of the church today who fail to explain from the biblical text how hardship and tribulation are actually used by God to expose the superficiality of all the human material props on which we rely,” he explained. “We failed … to show … how hardship and persecution and slander compel us to rely on the all-sufficiency of everything God is for us in Jesus.”

That failure has left most professing Christians unable to grasp “the simple truth” that “infinitely more important and of immeasurably greater value than our physical comfort in this world is our spiritual conformity to Christ,” Storms noted.

And conformity to the image of Christ is orchestrated through trials and hardship.

“If I suffer it is because God values something in me greater than my physical comfort and health that He in His infinite wisdom and kindness knows can only be attained by means of physical affliction and the lessons of submission and dependency and trust in Him that I learn from it,” he said.

“That’s how suffering serves joy.”

Everyday people are hearing about a joy less durable and far inferior than the one offered by God. Yet, Storms asked pastors, when was the last time you expounded on the nature of the fullness of joy, … the superior beauty of God?

Citing the work of 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards, Storms advised pastors on how a “Christian hedonist” should preach on the pursuit of joy.

“The pursuit of God brings ‘delights of a more sublime nature’, ‘pleasures that are more solid and substantial . . . vastly sweeter, and more exquisitely delighting, and are of a more satisfying nature . . . that exceed the pleasures of the vain, sensual youth, as much as gold and pearls do dirt and dung,’” he said, reading from Edwards’ sermon “Youth and the Pleasures of Piety.”

He continued, “Loving God ‘is an affection that is of a more sublime and excellent nature’ than the love of any earthly object. Such love is always mutual, and thus the love one receives from Christ ‘vastly exceeds the love of any earthly lover.’”

“Edwards argued that the problem isn’t the pursuit of pleasure but the willingness of uninformed minds to settle for comparatively inferior joys when God offers us unsurpassed and far more durable delights,” Storms explained.

The Bridgeway pastor reminded fellow ministers that delighting themselves in the Lord isn’t a choice, but a command and duty. Sin, he said, is denying a fillet mignon so you can fill your bellies with rancid ground beef.

We are not pursuing pleasure without God, but in Him, Storms stressed.

Speakers at the Feb. 1-3 Desiring God conference devoted their talks on the foundation of Christian Hedonism, a term coined by Desiring God’s John Piper, and the pursuit of joy.

Bob Blincoe, U.S. director of Frontiers in Phoenix, Ariz., defined Christian Hedonism as “the desire for God,” “desiring Him more than all other things” and “the confidence that there is nothing else worthy of our desire, nor rival treasure to treasuring Him.”

“Christian Hedonists … neglect every distraction, every attraction, every seduction, every sinful thought, and every temptation because we have set our hearts on the far exceeding treasure: God Himself,” Blincoe said.

The Cash Cow Kingdom…how many are there milking the cash cow. The church has become a Cash Cow Kingdom. The money just pours into the coffers of the men who are the only true prophets and apostles of God???. The mandatory tithes of 10% of the faithfuls’ gross incomes are just the tip of an immense iceberg.

The former finance director of a historic downtown church has been charged with stealing more than $500,000 from the institution over six years, court records show.

Jason Todd Reynolds, 38, of Bowie was arrested last week on a wire fraud charge. He is accused of using the money to finance the purchases of luxury cars, trips and jewelry, U.S. Secret Service agent Melissa T. Blake said in court papers.

Reynolds worked for National City Christian Church from 2002 until the scheme was uncovered in 2008, the agent wrote. The finance director used the church’s American Express card to make about $300,000 in personal purchases, including down payments for a Land Rover and Lexus SUV, according to the court papers.

He also purchased an $8,718 two-carat diamond ring and a $7,600 leather sectional sofa with the card, Blake alleged.

Blake also accused Reynolds of writing himself more than $200,000 in church checks over the years.

Reynolds, who could not be reached for comment, was fired in June last year. He appeared at a brief hearing Dec. 23 in the District’s federal court and was released on personal recognizance.

Have the church become like the Government? Spending recklessly over their budgets and expect the people to bail them out. What happened to being good Stewarts?

Before you can teach anyone something you must first be one yourself, unless the church is saying to us it is okay to overspend (run up our credit cards and expect God to bail us out) and everything will be okay. If best practice tells us we should have at least three months of income in our saving in case of a Job lost…does this mean the teacher of stewardship is exempt?

Their job will be to collect all the food produced in the good years ahead and stockpile the grain under Pharaoh’s authority, storing it in the towns for food. This grain will be held back to be used later during the seven years of famine that are coming on Egypt. This way the country won’t be devastated by the famine. This seemed like a good idea to Pharaoh and his officials. Genesis 41:35-37

If this seemed good for Pharaoh and his officials…shouldn’t it be a bit of wisdom for the leaders of the Body of Christ? Makes you wonder if the Word of God is really being used to edify the Body…do we just live to fulfill the desires of men?

Pastor Rick Warren of the Southern California megachurch Saddleback Church is encouraging his parishioners to donate $900,000 within two days.

In an “urgent” letter posted on the church’s web site Wednesday, Warren explained that church expenses went up this year to help care for the financially hurting community while the end-of-year donations are down. Saddleback needs the $900,000 by New Year’s Eve to stay out of debt, the founding pastor stated.

“On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive – leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow,” stated the letter.

Warren noted that ten percent of the more than 22,000 members of the church are out of work this year. To help the struggling members as well as the community in general, Saddleback bolstered its charity services such as its food pantry.

The Saddleback food pantry fed 400 hurting families in the community every month, and over 2,000 different families received food assistance in 2009, Warren highlighted.

Other Saddleback charity services to help those hurt by the recession included a breakfast and homeless ministry that helped thousands in the poorest parts of Southern California’s Orange County, financial coaching, and a ministry that collects donated cars to help those struggling with transportation.

Warren, in a recent interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, said the number one thing he believes American politicians need to do domestically is “get America back to work.”

“I think before health care or anything else, we need to get people back to work,” Warren told NBC’s David Gregory last month.

“There’s nearly 10 percent unemployment. That’s the equivalent of Canada being unemployed. And so we have to look at this fact that if we get people back to work, then we can work on some of these other issues,” he said.

Given the high levels of unemployment, Saddleback members said they were not surprised by Warren’s appeal for donations. Some members noted that people in their small groups were out of work and they are eager to support the church in its time of need.

“When Pastor Rick asked for help [after the 2004 South Asian tsunami], we did it in one offering,” recalled Kim Offhaus to the Orange County Register. “People at Saddleback are very generous.”

Meanwhile, church member Eric Bezko praised Warren for how he handled the church’s financial situation.

“It’s like people can give a Christmas present to the church,” Bezko commented.

Warren concluded his urgent letter to Saddleback parishioners by calling them “the most generous church family” he knows that has “always come through when asked.”

“I love you so much,” Warren wrote. “It is a deep privilege to be your pastor. I will be teaching again this weekend and writing to you about the lessons I’ve learned in 2009.”

Earlier this year, Warren gave the invocation at the inauguration of President Obama and drew the attention of secular media with his comments about gay marriage and California’s Proposition 8. The Hope You Need, the follow-up to Warren’s best-selling novel The Purpose Driven Life, will be released in 2010.

Is it really a double portion of money that we need…or would a single portion of repentance be much more pleasing to God?

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

Dallas megachurch pastor and entrepreneur T.D. Jakes usually doesn’t make declarations or predictions for the new year.

But the year 2010 is different.

In a video message, The Potter’s House pastor said he expects 2010 to be a year of “double portion.”

Considering the global economic slump that many have suffered through over the past year or so, Jakes sees light at the end of a tunnel.

“The Bible is not mystical about loss. It’s just the modern day teachers that we have today that led us down the wrong path to thinking that there would be no challenges,” he noted. “The Bible has always been clear that there would be losses. But He promised to restore the years [of] cankerworms.”

Alluding to a biblical passage in the Old Testament book of Joel, Jakes called 2009 a year when cankerworms, palmerworms and locusts ate into people’s resources, retirements and homes. But just as Joel prophesied in the Bible, Jakes believes God will restore in the new year what was taken away.

“When you look at 2010, I believe it is time for us … to look at the fact that we have been through enough things, been through enough turmoil that now we’re ready to move to the next level,” he declared in the video message, while noting that 20 is “10 carried into a double dimension.”

“Whenever God pulls back a bow, the arrow is going to go further than it’s ever gone before,” he said. “I believe that the turning point is going to be 2010.

“I believe because we have crossed this Jordan like Elijah and Elisha that we are now eligible to step into a double portion. Financially, yes. We need it; our country needs it; our world needs it. But beyond that, wisdom, inspiration, a new development of faith; I believe new ministries are going to burst wide open.”

Tens of thousands are expected to ring in the new year with Jakes, who is often identified as a prosperity gospel preacher. The charismatic preacher recently announced a “historic Watch Night” service that will involve multi-site technology. Along with a New Year’s Eve service at The Potter’s House worship center in Dallas on West Kiest Boulevard, the megachurch will also be hosting the service in two other locations via satellite.

“Open your arms up to God and receive your blessing,” Jakes says in his invitation.

While optimistic for the new year, Jakes articulated that the year of blessing and restoration will come to those who are prepared and have a strategy in place and to those who have been dealt setbacks but refused to die.

“If no strategy is in place to propel yourself forward … you won’t be prepared to move forward to the next dimension,” he emphasized. “If you’re planning to use all the struggle of 2009 to propel you for 2010, I believe you will be blessed.”

He noted, “I’ve been teaching our church to plan to be blessed. It’s not accidental; it’s not a mistake. There’s a strategy to it. Sow your seed now.”

The Potter’s House is one of the largest churches in the nation with more than 30,000 members. As the church states in its description, Jakes’ ministry rivals many corporations employing nearly 400 staff members.