Matt turned on the tv yesterday morning before we went to church and was listening to a big name preacher who I won’t name. I could hear it from the bathroom and it took about 1 min. to just light my fire, and not in a good way. We listened for about 5 or so minutes and it was so frustrating to me. He was talking about how this couple had been infertile and tried everything to get pregnant and then one day in church they just decided to believe that God would give them a child and He did. I can believe that I can fly but that doesn’t make it true. The point from what I could tell was that if you just believe God then He does what you want and brings blessings. He even used a verse about those who follow God blessings follow, which I think is true but not in the context that he was using it. He even used the example of his mom having terminal cancer and living for 26 more years because she believed God. Ok, so my friend who just died of cancer and also believed God would heal him and it didn’t happen was what, not as blessed by God? I totally disagree. I wish that it were true that by following Jesus life would be just perfect, but it’s not. The sad thing with living like this, with the “Prosperity Gospel” mentality is that is just makes the focus on me. If I’m good enough then God blesses me and that’s just crap. It’s not about me. I don’t want to just point out the bad in his philosophy, unfortunately I live by that philosophy sometimes too. For instance, recently I was really mad that God didn’t bring someone to buy our house. I thought, God has asked us to move and we’re being obedient so why isn’t he blessing us? But He’s provided in another way and I need to be okay with that. I want to make it about me and what I can do to be blessed but it just doesn’t work that way.
After that start and bad philosophy we then visited a church that had great teaching and part of it was on Eph. 6. It was a good reminder that righteousness is not earned and kept the focus on Christ. Now that’s refreshing.