Over at Beliefnet, I noticed this “Daily Christian Wisdom.” And wanted to scream.
You’ve got to believe that God is in control of your life. It may be a tough time but you’ve got to believe that God has a reason for it and he’s going to make everything good.
Joel Osteen
I love Romans 8:28, which is probably to what Osteen’s referring. But to an unbeliever, or to a new or weak believer, that sounds like God’s a cosmic gumball machine. You put in your prayers, faith, and works and you’ll eventually get back the result you want.And the article the quote links to expounds on that idea.
You talk about God’s favor a lot. What is God’s favor?
I believe God’s favor is something intangible where you’ve got God’s blessings on your lives. I’m not saying it’s not a struggle, but you believe for good things.
There are so many people who don’t expect anything good in life. They don’t expect to get breaks, they don’t expect to get promoted, they don’t expect anything positive. So I just try to get people to say, I believe if we expect God’s favor, if we declare it, if we thank him when we do see good things happening, then we’re going to see more of that.
The idea seems to be that God’s favor is when we get what we want. And if we expect God’s obedience, clearly state to Him what we want, and reward Him when He complies, then He’ll be trained according to our specifications and we’ll enjoy “our best life now.” Osteen’s not training disciples. He’s training God whisperers.
His expectation seems to be one of entitlement, not humility:
You say we should choose to let go of hurts and “let God make it up to us.” What if he doesn’t?
I think he always will, because he’s faithful. He may not make it up the way we want. But when I say God may make something up to us, maybe an example of a husband or wife, somebody walked out of a relationship, I’m not saying God’s going to make up something that next year or maybe your whole lifetime, but I believe God can make it up and give you a peace and a joy that you never had before. I don’t think it’s “Joel said God’s going to bring me another husband in two years.” I think it’s a peace, a joy, a happiness.
That almost makes sense, if you parse it carefully – that God will salve our hurts with peace, joy, and happiness. But Osteen doesn’t say how. The reader hasn’t learned that it is God’s own presence (not his presents) which provides the peace, joy and happiness. And Osteen doesn’t provide any clues on how to enter into God’s presence.
The whole article is like that – things which almost make sense, which are sort of helpful, or could be, maybe… Imagine being a new believer, someone who literally doesn’t know better, and reading that tripe. You’d be worse off than when you started, because God is NOT a cosmic gumball machine, and no matter how we try to manipulate Him into giving us the results that we want, that’s just not how it works. The whole premise is wrong. It starts with our wants, instead of our needs – forgiveness, repentance, and a willingness to pick up our cross. It doesn’t address what true joy is and how to get it.
I’ve taught classes where I didn’t understand the material. (Unfortunately, the company I worked for was prone to tossing a book and a disk at me and informing me I’d be teaching that class tomorrow.) That’s really the sense I get from Osteen. He comes across as a man who just has no idea what he’s talking about; he’s parroting things he’s more or less memorized but he has no experience or comprehension. If his quote at the top of this post is based on Romans 8:28, as seems likely, then he’s twisted it from biblical truth into something that serves the enemy instead of God. And that’s typical of Osteen’s work; the most prominent thing about it is how easy it is to fisk. Considering the size of his following, that’s not just sad – it’s scary.
As someone who lives in the midst of “Osteen land” it is truly frightening to see a man with so much influence use it to promote nothing more than a prosperity gospel. His book “Become a Better You” is nothing more than a self-help new age think good things bunch of pages that is pushed off as being Christian. There is very little Christian about it. Even in the church services it’s more about “feel good” than Biblical truth. He even says that it isn’t helpful to talk about sin, it’s more important to focus on the good stuff because if you focus of the good things then they are sure to happen and the sin doesn’t matter. My daughter attended his church for a couple of months and walked away wondering if Jesus was ever in attendance. That you found his article to be a bit deceiving isn’t surprising at all to me.
I remember when the ‘blab it and grab it” faith movement spreadk through the nineties and into our own local church. By the grace of God, strong preaching came and broke through the deception of having “faith in faith”. My favorite moment of clarity (still serves me) is how ridiculous the entire idea would have appeared to Job had he been presented with it. I mean, all the positive thinking in the world wasn’t going to bring his busines, health, marriage or kids back until God confronted and took away his pride; then God’s purposes became known and He chose to bless him for his faithfulness (strained as it was). Maybe Joel Osteen needs to have the same thing happen to him? God’s mercy and grace are only that because of who He is and because He gives it to whomsoever He wills. Our faith in His character shouldn’t be void because we don’t get answered prayers or “our best life now” and to preach otherwise is heretical from a biblical perspective; besides, for the believer the best life will be Then, with Jesus.
I am not one of those people who is hard on Joel Osteen … just want to say that upfront. I think everyone has a job in the Body of Christ and his just may be to make people feel good because that is pretty much the only thing he does do. He says things that make people feel good.
I don’t think what he says would fly with our brothers and sisters in other countries who are dying for the faith. I also think that new Christians shouldn’t even listen to him.
I think they would just get confused and possibly fall away if God didn’t give them what they wanted or if something seriously bad happened in their life.
I do love his opening jokes though. He is too funny sometimes.