Gospel of prosperity

The Gospel of prosperity, as preached by the likes of Noel Jones, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes,Joel Osteen and other preachers esp of megachurches, deals basically with wealth and health. It's utilizes scriptures that focus on material things and encouraging believers to have material wealth. It has a grand number of followers, especially the physically poor and chronically ill, with so called healing ministries and crusades around the world, taking advantage of gullible believers. Or is it the other way round? With a certain preavher once pointing out that the multitudes of followers of such gospels are not victims but rather accomplices to such, because they raise them up and rally behind them with itchy ears. The prosperity gospel isn't Christian at all, for one, the bible emphasizes that the love of money is the root to evil, Jesus himself said that we cannot have both. You cannot love both God and money, to put in perspective, Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Ironically, the early church had no wealth to speak of, when Peter and John healed the beggar, they did not have any money, they were "broke:. Jesus told His followers to sell all their possession and give to the poor so that they may have wealth in eternity. He said that we should not gather wealth on earth where the thieves can break and steal or where the moth can eat but rather seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and everything else will follow. We have on one side, the Founder of the Christian faith saying, do not worry about what you will eat, or drink, or what you will wear but seek he first the Kingdom of God. He even says thatnon believers are the ones after those things...so technically, prosperity gospel should not even be categorized as Christian. Prosperity gospel has a tendency to assume that God does what we want Him to do. It completely disregards the fact that God does whatever He chooses, it assumes that God is bounded by certain scriptures and at no moment would it dare to quote this scripture. It compromises the sovereignty of God...lest we forget. Then, the devil took him to a high mountain and showed Him to a very high mountain, showing Him all kingdoms and their splendour and said. These have been given to me and I give to whomever I choose, if would bow down, all will be yours. Also, let's not forget that His Kingdom is not of this world, God doesn't want us to be rich or poor but for us to have enough for daily needs, what makes this gospel successful is that most people are greedy. It doesn't have to be money, the gospel also emphasizes being above your enemies, in the meanwhile GOD said, we should love our enemies and bless them, and do good to them. The opposite of blessing is cursing, and cursing is basically wishing evil upon someone instead of good. Not wanting your enemies to prosper makes you less than a child of God, because God makes the rain reach the farms of both the just and the wicked. It doesn't matter how they may have mistreated you. The gospel talks of getting promotions at school and at work, as if not being promoted means that God does not love you. Or that you don't have enough faith, the problem with prosperity gospel is focusing on mainly one aspect and forgetting the other. Joseph became second in command of pharaoh, in time, it doesn't mean that he was less in the will of God when he was imprisoned as when he was free. In the new testament however, we have the apostles who all left their jobs, wealth and families to follow Jesus. The truth is, none of us have dared or at least dare to this day, say that we as Christians have completely obliterated one teaching of Jesus which could haunt us in the future with we don't take it seriously. I'm addition to loving our enemies, He taught us to hate our lives, to hate our families and to hate our jobs, and our friends. I'll make a short disclaimer, but I believe that Jesus was trying to emphasize something to all of us. This is something God has been using throughout history, and that is, you are alone. He told Abram to leave his home, his father's house and go to an unknown location to become a nation. Noah had to leave some of his relatives to drown in the flood, he probably had cousins, brothers, sisters and in-laws. Such may hold you back, at some point you are going to have to choose between then and God, unfortunately more often than not, we choose them over God. How many of us preach to our families,friends and colleagues? How many of us stand firm for His Name and He's been attacked? Rarely, because we don't want to offend them, we don't want to loose them. We are afraid of being asked questions we do not have answers for. We don't want to excluded or socially isolated. *We would rather preach the feel good gospel, tell everyone that God loves them, that as long as you're a good person you will go to heaven, heaven is after all a free gift*. Music to everyone's ears, but the days which Paul warned Timothy about are here, people will look godly but inwardly don't believe, they'll be lovers of themselves, gathering in churches with itchy ears being told what they want to hear. Just like in the times of king Ahabs reign, Jezebel destroying all prophets except those of Baal, Elijah went into isolation and was fed by raven and it the drought he said to God. They have killed all your prophets, God comforted Elijah by saying, I have reserved for Myself 7 000 men who have not bowed down to Baal. I bring this up because, you might feel that you are all alone, and that there's no one else on God's side. There is always a remnant, who want the truth but haven't had the opportunity. Paul knew this and said, to not give pearls to swine. You need to assess the reception of those you preach to, remember that there were times when Jesus didn't even bother performing any miracles, there were times when He didn't teach anything. And if you ever feel rejected, remember Samuel as well. When the Israelites were living in a Theocracy (God as king), they went to him and said make us a king. Why? According to them, so that they could be like other nations, they inevitably rejected God as their King because they wanted to blend in. They wanted to conform to the world, and God told Samuel to give them a king, and not take it personally because it wasn't Samuel they were rejecting but God. We need to make that distinction, some times the God we preach gets rejected and we take it personal. The other factor is, planting the Word is hard, harvesting is easier. God doesn't expect us to convert everyone right away, but to do what we can with the available time. Let us do what Jesus commanded, go into the world preaching the good news, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Posterity gospel, with its relative morality, leaves no room for conviction of sin, no room for repentance, some would go as far as saying do whatever you feel is right as long as you're sincerere (we will cover this topic in Apologetics, *relative vs absolute morality*). The preachers preach a love which is distinct to what Jesus taught, it would seem that they imply that Jesus taught hate. They preach a God who accepts everyone as they are, although partially true. God loves us all, but His plan for us is to be more like Him, this gospel preaches a God to be more like us. It emphasizes Grace without holiness and though has generated more followers, its a highway to hell. Even though Jesus preached more about hell than He did about heaven, they do the opposite. In some way, we ourselves are guilty of preaching such a Gospel. We forget that Jesus once preached to thousands and reduced them to few, by telling everyone the truth. We are so afraid of losing numbers than losing souls, we have gotten to the point where we will keep certain things to ourselves or omit certain messages. Because we do not want to offend anyone, but truth seekers won't be discouraged by the gospel. Paul once said that where vs we go we spread it like a sweet perfume, but its perceived different by those who are saved and by those who are not. Our responsibility is not to make the Gospel less offensive but preach is as it is. The message should not be compromised⚓