In my previous post, I did not mean to imply that we can’t petition God for things we want, or that we have no reasonable hope of obtaining better circumstances with God’s help.
The Bible is explicit that we can ask God for things: Paul told the Philippians, “Have no anxiety for anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
The catch is understanding that God can say no, and understanding why. Just as we would criticize parents who gave in to a child’s every whim, God knows what’s in our best interests, and often says no to our requests for our own good. Requests are never denied because He doesn’t like us or we didn’t ask in the right way or didn’t pray hard/often enough. His grace is unconditional.
The “Prosperity Gospel” of American Evangelicalism runs afoul of sound theology not because we aren’t allowed to ask God for what we want, but because of the tendency to treat God like a genie who’s there to grant wishes, with the corollary that if your wishes don’t come true, it’s because you didn’t ask in the right way, you didn’t believe hard enough, you didn’t pray often enough, you prayed at the wrong church, or you’re simply just a sinner.
This is dangerous thinking. It leads wealthy people to believe that they are in God’s favor, and causes them to look down on the poor because they think God is punishing them with poverty for their sins or lack of faith. It causes people to become bitter if they feel God is simply denying their requests, or sometimes they turn away from faith altogether because they conclude if prayers aren’t answered the way we would like, that no one is listening.
We have to ask for godly things: patience, wisdom, compassion, understanding. These requests are never denied.
Jesus taught, “Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Yet on the night of His betrayal, He prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” We all know how that turned out. But where would our salvation be if the request had been granted? We have to trust that God’s wisdom far surpasses our own.
So Pastor Osteen isn’t wrong to invite people to the Christian faith with the promise of the chance to improve their lives, fix their marriages, find a better job, or whatever. He insists that “one of God’s top priorities is to shower blessings on Christians in this lifetime.” That’s true, but Christians must understand, being wealthy isn’t a blessing, it’s a cross to bear.
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I think Christians would do well to remember the many characters in the Bible who had things go horribly wrong for them. Some of them, like Joseph, had things mostly made up in the end. Others, like Job, experienced irreplaceable loss (in my opinion anyway -- having lots of kids afterward is all well and good, but the fact is his first kids died, completely dead and gone). And that's not even counting the women, who had it harder than most of the men in lots of respects -- Esther was sold in marriage to a man she didn't know; Rahab lived a life as a prostitute before she had a chance at a redeemed life; and Mary (Jesus' mother) had to live as an outcast as a condition of giving birth to the savior. God doesn't make things easy for the people he loves. And the fact of the matter is that we don't understand why he does things the way he does. That's the whole point of faith -- you have it even when it doesn't make sense.
That's one of the huge things that's always bothered me about the Evangelical movement, even when I was a part of it; the Bible tells us explicitly that ours is not a results-oriented faith. That means it's not about how many people you convert, or about how big your church is. It's about holding fast to your faith even when it doesn't make sense any more.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post!
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