So, I have heard, seen, and read a great deal of 'Christian' teaching which I would consider to be clearly heresy. I believe that one of the most common/widespread heresies in the modern day is the Prosperity Gospel movement, this has also been called the Health and Wealth gospel. It is clear that those who preach this gospel have not read, or have chosen to willfully ignore, the scriptures and they seek to gain converts through lies and false promises. This movement seems to be more about numbers and money than anything else, at least that is what I see in it.
However, more than this, I am forced to wonder whether or not a person can truly be saved under such a ministry. Something I have been thinking about recently it what, theologically speaking, the minimum of correct belief is for a person to be a Christian. Let me give an example of this, I believe that it is evident that a person need not believe (in fact need not even hold an opinion) in a particular view of the temporal progression of the end times in order to be saved (in other words a person can be a Premiller, Postmiller, or Amiller and still be saved), however if a person denies the full divinity or the full humanity of Christ then I must wonder what god he/she has believed in.
At any rate, the following poem was written in response to dealing with several ardent followers of the prosperity gospel.
In plight we seek the hand of God
Forgetting always his name to laud
Concerned only with the needs of flesh
For wealth and love and new body a fresh
Ignorant of God's good and holy work
Uncaring for life's shadows in which sin might lurk
We call upon the great almighty God
Under summons of charismatic fraud
Our selfish whims and imagined need
To grant to us with hastened speed
And then his word we deign ignore
His truest ministers we deem a bore
In his perfect plan we find much fault
Ne'er understanding its full gestalt
Seeing only our short-sighted want
God is imagined as some mystic font
And then we turn our face away
Unwilling such great price to pay
So unable to true disciples be
Such will his kingdom never see
But fall all unawares to lowest pit
This in his word is clearly writ
So let all those who seek this path
Fear his burning eyes and greatest wrath
And turn away from their selfish hoard
Seek instead the Christ as both savior and almighty Lord
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Everyone should know that God wants what it best for you. However, when contemplating that,it is well to remember that 'God cares more about your character than your comfort.'
ReplyDeleteWhere do we get this idea that God wants what is best for us? Romans 8:28 states that God works all things for good for those who are called according to his purpose (I left some of it out I think) but I have yet to find a teaching in scripture that God wants 'what is best for us.'
ReplyDeleteGod wants what is best for God, it just so happens that what is best for God is also best for us, but I fear that we often get confused and put ourselves at the center of God's intentions.