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Hi Josh,
I believe we are on the same page, it just that it was not presented in a way to show some common grounds. I think I will answer through your reply. Perhaps that would help more.
"However, I believe when I mention "health & wealth" and the "prosperity gospel" i'm speaking specifically about particular people who have the Jesus-Genie mentality that if they pray hard enough, or demand God (in Jesus' Name) to bless them with a new house, new car, fill in the blank... that they will receive what they ask because they are 1) strong believers 2) lean on Jesus' promise to give them what they desire. If they don't receive it, they didn't have enough faith."
If we really study the Gospels, the level of faith is only accorded by God. Like the woman in Matthew 9:18. She just think that if she can touch Jesus cloak, she will be healed. She did not say, "my faith is very high, so that I will be healed if I touched His cloak". No, Jesus accorded the level of faith to her as He did to Abraham (Romans 4:9), as He did to the Gentile woman (Matt 15) and as He did to the Centurion (Luke 7). What am I trying to say is that we can never judge our level of faith correctly, only a just judge, God, who can do that the best. So to base our blessings accordance to our level of faith through our own judgement is both fruitless and unnecessary.
Why am I saying the above? Our Abba in Heaven treats us even better than how our own earthly fathers treats us despite the level of faith that we have. We just need faith the size of a small seed is enough for God to move mountains for us. In short we do not need much so why compare level of faith to the level of blessings? Just know God blesses because He is a good God (even the word 'good', hebrew 'tob' have meanings of prosperity within it).
The issue now is the how we treat of the gospel of good news (which include prosperity and peace which I have explained in my last post).
The best way for me to illustrate is using the relationship between our children and parents (I do not have children but I can understand because I see how my mother treats me). If my kid ask me to get a toy because I said I will bless her with something, me being a parent would assess the situation by looking at the toy and see if it is ok (maybe I get lego blocks instead of a toy gun for example). If the toy is not ok, I will not give but does not mean I will not bless.
Now if my kid thinks that I am a selfish dad because I did not give the toy he asked, does that mean I am not generous? Now apply the same question to us asking God for favours, do you think He will give?
Our Father definitely will give what we ask. But how He gives will be up to Him to dictate. I asked for a car at the present moment, but He feels that it is not the time because somehow I am not comfortable or my situation do not merit it. Does that mean God is mean?
Now the issue, as you have put very well, is our attitude towards a generous God. Before I continue, I must comment that in this argument against prosperity Gospel it is very easy to malign the character of God so much so that the opponents of such a 'gospel' would say that blessings is not for Christians (it is extreme but it came across as such). I must emphasize that God is out to bless us abundantly and without limits just because He sees us righteous through the acceptance of Christ as our saviour. If we believe that we are righteous because God says so, then we have the faith to accept the blessings.
Now is a time for self reflection by asking some questions:
a) Are we thankful for the blessings from God?
b) Are we asking God for things just because we are greedy?
c) Do we get angry and frustrated when things are not going the way we want?
I must confess that I am guilty of the above before. But God still blesses me not because I deserve it but because He saw it fit to bless despite my weaknesses.
The opposite of course is also true: God still bless the wicked despite their deeds. How did God do that? He still cause the sun to shine on them, the rain to pour on them, air for them to breathe and a roof for them to sleep under.
If God do the same for the people of Nineveh when Jonah was sent to proclaim judgement, God will do the same for His children who is not appreciative of His Blessings.
So the main issue is our attitude towards blessings. Are we spoil brats who are not contented with what God gives us? Remember Jesus gives us Salom peace, which includes contentment. Without contentment we can never feel we have enough and then we strive to get more so as to fulfill our needs and wants. So with contentment, we need not strive but give thanks for blessings of God.
So the problem is not the gospel that blesses through prosperity and health. The problem is the teaching that we keep demanding things despite being blessed enough to enjoy contentment. If that's the case, then we do not have salom peace that Jesus will give us.
Remember the Gospel, in its true meaning is Good News. And the good news is that we are heir to the world in accordance to the promise of God given to Abraham since we are the sons of faith. And being the heir of the world means that what the world has, we have too. And in that essence, it means prosperity. So the fact remains that the Gospel is truly a Gospel about being rich and being in health because of a gracious God given to us through Jesus sacrifice.
We are in danger of misrepresenting the gospel by calling the teachings focusing on being rich as 'prosperity gospel'. I would call it 'selfish desires teaching' instead (for lack of a better title) or self centered teachings or brat mentality teaching.
I believe we are on the same page, it just that it was not presented in a way to show some common grounds. I think I will answer through your reply. Perhaps that would help more.
"However, I believe when I mention "health & wealth" and the "prosperity gospel" i'm speaking specifically about particular people who have the Jesus-Genie mentality that if they pray hard enough, or demand God (in Jesus' Name) to bless them with a new house, new car, fill in the blank... that they will receive what they ask because they are 1) strong believers 2) lean on Jesus' promise to give them what they desire. If they don't receive it, they didn't have enough faith."
If we really study the Gospels, the level of faith is only accorded by God. Like the woman in Matthew 9:18. She just think that if she can touch Jesus cloak, she will be healed. She did not say, "my faith is very high, so that I will be healed if I touched His cloak". No, Jesus accorded the level of faith to her as He did to Abraham (Romans 4:9), as He did to the Gentile woman (Matt 15) and as He did to the Centurion (Luke 7). What am I trying to say is that we can never judge our level of faith correctly, only a just judge, God, who can do that the best. So to base our blessings accordance to our level of faith through our own judgement is both fruitless and unnecessary.
Why am I saying the above? Our Abba in Heaven treats us even better than how our own earthly fathers treats us despite the level of faith that we have. We just need faith the size of a small seed is enough for God to move mountains for us. In short we do not need much so why compare level of faith to the level of blessings? Just know God blesses because He is a good God (even the word 'good', hebrew 'tob' have meanings of prosperity within it).
The issue now is the how we treat of the gospel of good news (which include prosperity and peace which I have explained in my last post).
The best way for me to illustrate is using the relationship between our children and parents (I do not have children but I can understand because I see how my mother treats me). If my kid ask me to get a toy because I said I will bless her with something, me being a parent would assess the situation by looking at the toy and see if it is ok (maybe I get lego blocks instead of a toy gun for example). If the toy is not ok, I will not give but does not mean I will not bless.
Now if my kid thinks that I am a selfish dad because I did not give the toy he asked, does that mean I am not generous? Now apply the same question to us asking God for favours, do you think He will give?
Our Father definitely will give what we ask. But how He gives will be up to Him to dictate. I asked for a car at the present moment, but He feels that it is not the time because somehow I am not comfortable or my situation do not merit it. Does that mean God is mean?
Now the issue, as you have put very well, is our attitude towards a generous God. Before I continue, I must comment that in this argument against prosperity Gospel it is very easy to malign the character of God so much so that the opponents of such a 'gospel' would say that blessings is not for Christians (it is extreme but it came across as such). I must emphasize that God is out to bless us abundantly and without limits just because He sees us righteous through the acceptance of Christ as our saviour. If we believe that we are righteous because God says so, then we have the faith to accept the blessings.
Now is a time for self reflection by asking some questions:
a) Are we thankful for the blessings from God?
b) Are we asking God for things just because we are greedy?
c) Do we get angry and frustrated when things are not going the way we want?
I must confess that I am guilty of the above before. But God still blesses me not because I deserve it but because He saw it fit to bless despite my weaknesses.
The opposite of course is also true: God still bless the wicked despite their deeds. How did God do that? He still cause the sun to shine on them, the rain to pour on them, air for them to breathe and a roof for them to sleep under.
If God do the same for the people of Nineveh when Jonah was sent to proclaim judgement, God will do the same for His children who is not appreciative of His Blessings.
So the main issue is our attitude towards blessings. Are we spoil brats who are not contented with what God gives us? Remember Jesus gives us Salom peace, which includes contentment. Without contentment we can never feel we have enough and then we strive to get more so as to fulfill our needs and wants. So with contentment, we need not strive but give thanks for blessings of God.
So the problem is not the gospel that blesses through prosperity and health. The problem is the teaching that we keep demanding things despite being blessed enough to enjoy contentment. If that's the case, then we do not have salom peace that Jesus will give us.
Remember the Gospel, in its true meaning is Good News. And the good news is that we are heir to the world in accordance to the promise of God given to Abraham since we are the sons of faith. And being the heir of the world means that what the world has, we have too. And in that essence, it means prosperity. So the fact remains that the Gospel is truly a Gospel about being rich and being in health because of a gracious God given to us through Jesus sacrifice.
We are in danger of misrepresenting the gospel by calling the teachings focusing on being rich as 'prosperity gospel'. I would call it 'selfish desires teaching' instead (for lack of a better title) or self centered teachings or brat mentality teaching.
On to Proverbs 13:21 Pro 13:21 (ASV) Evil pursueth sinners; But the righteous shall be recompensed with good. (BBE) Evil will overtake sinners, but the upright will be rewarded with good. (GNB) Trouble follows sinners everywhere, but righteous people will be rewarded with good things. (KJV+) Evil7451 pursueth7291 sinners:2400 but to the righteous6662 good2896 shall be repaid.7999 (YLT) Evil pursueth sinners, And good recompenseth the righteous. What I usually do is to take a verse and to see if I can find parrallel translation of the same verse (even in chinese if i can illustrate better). So as we can see, 'good' was being translated as 'prosperity' in the original verse. I seriously do not see anything wrong. We who are believers in Jesus are being promised well-being or good things. Do we experience upheaval? That would be a yes...but does that mean we are being given a bashing like Job? We may 'feel' like it but in actual fact we don't. Good in that sense is that God could have allowed calamity as He has given Job but He did not. In all things give thanks to the Lord for He has protected us from worse things. It will always be a case of 'half-full or half-empty' perspective, but Christians who are full of thanksgiving, will be of the half-full mentality. Now the next part: "I know some very godly people both in my life and also as popular, well-known men of God who have experienced tremendous pain and simply put, a hard life that looking at it from the outside in, does not seem blessed with health, wealth, prosperity, etc." "Why do you call me good?" Jesus asked him. "No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:18) How do we know if a well-known person is godly or deserved what he gets? Only God can judge it so and He has said the same thing to Job. But did the seemingly lack of health, wealth, prosperity alone determine the spirituality of a person? We of limited knowledge can never know. For this I know, God is good and His plan, according to Jeremiah 29:11, is to bless us and not for disaster, plans to give us hope and a future. We can never judge correctly because we do not know everything to judge right. If we allow God to be God, then He will know what is good for the people who are godly. Some judgements may, to us, look bad but to God will give tremendous blessings to the person in question. If we look to Job again, the result of his ordeal is a fresh and correct appreciation of God. Why do I say that? Read Job 1:5. What did Job say and did? He made burnt offering for his children because Job is scared that God would punish his children because his children may have cursed God. What is the picture of God in Job's eyes? What is the value Job put in the burnt offerings? Now if we turn to Job at the end of his ordeal, he cannot answer God because Job cannot know everything why things happened (we know because God trust Job's faith in Him to show Satan a thing or two about real faith!). Job accepts God for who He is and also the wisdom that God have in dealings with things on earth. God judged that Job's ordeal will improve Job and so He did...and oh one more thing, God gives twice the prosperity than before. So God will Bless us with prosperity and health but for some, through His wisdom, are to be trained through His watchful eyes and to many others, like the friends of job, would think that God is punishing them when in actual fact He is not. "My question to anyone reading this post... how do we understand the tension posed in my question in relation to this verse and all that the Bible has to say" So in fact there is really no tension at all because God's plans for us is always for good and in the good plans that includes prosperity and health. Even if we did not see with our own eyes now on earth through ourselves or through friends, surely He will do so in heaven for us who are in Christ. Lastly... "The idea that your health, wealth and satisfaction in life is a direct representation of your relationship with God is completely unbiblical and quite honestly, scary. However, I cannot deny the fact that often God blesses those He loves and those who obey Him." If you would forgive me, if you posed the same question to Jesus what would He say? The pharisees asked Jesus the same question to and how would Jesus feel? Scary? Why because Jesus is God's son? So if Jesus is really God's son so whatever belongs to God is Jesus right? So is that scary? You bet! Especially when Jesus has all the power that God has, even control over the heavens and the seas, over the demons and the unseen. So if God says we are sons of God accordance to the promise made to Abraham it is the same as claiming that I am a son of God through Christ, as Jesus did in front of the Pharisees. It would also mean that I have the same power of Christ who is in me. Is that scary? Of course it is! Because the power in me is the power that Satan is scared of. Why scared of something that is good in the first place? Unless you deemed the goodness of God of being 'scary'? So my relationship with God demands that good things in life is a given, is that biblical? It would be a 'yes' as I have shown through numerous bible verses unless you could find the verses that debunked God being an evil God that blesses us with sickness and with poverty. But my answer would be conditional. Why? Because the good things in life in our definition may not be the good things in life in God's eyes for each and everyone of us who believes in Him. The issue is who are the real sons of God? That can be seen through the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And if the real sons of God prayed for goodness and that includes health and wealth, it is the right of sons and daughters. if the prince of wales demands things to be done because his mother is the queen of England, would it get done? Of course. But to God it is different. He will answer according to His own goodness and wisdom. We as sons and daughters of God can ask according to our right standing with God and with the understanding that we are the reflection of the true, good, God (as all human beings are images of God). Our prayers will be answered in God's time and wisdom and ways. Some prayers will be selfish, some prayers will be for the common good, some prayers will be for the good of the family but let us allow God to filter the prayers and answer to His liking. One thing is for sure: the outcome will be for our good, done through God's methods! As Job has recognised the soverign God and not as his genie, I too have recognised my God as soverign as well and not my genie, but I will still pray for good things in life because it is my right since Jesus Christ the righteous, has become my advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1) . Our real attitude therefore will be seen through the reaction to the results of our prayers. My attitude is that God is God so the result is in accordance to His wisdom and plan for my life and I will accept them. If the attitude is that God should do what I say because of my right as sons of God, then it is wrong, plain and simple since such attitude runs contradictory to a soverign God..and worse of all, such attitudes shall never see nor experience the REAL good things of God. Do reflect on what you have put forward. If God do bless His people, that is biblical, yes? And yet in the earlier sentence you say that being in health and wealth and have satisfaction in life is because of relationship with God, in other words "we are God's people", it is now unbiblical? So what is your stand? Do consider because Right Believing results in the Right perspective of God and thus gives us Right Living with God. |
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