Prosperity Theology

 

"Therefore I am saying to you, Do not worry about your soul, what you may be eating, or what you may be drinking, nor yet about your body, what you should be putting on.  Is not the soul more than nourishment, and the body than apparel?" 

Matthew 6: 25, Concordant New Testament 

Growing up I learned pretty quick that there was one way to get what I needed from the Lord.  This required prayer, and adhering to what God wanted me to do.  In fact, I believe that many a Christian has grown up the very same way.  We're told to trust God to provide for our needs.  At the same time, we're told that if we have any needs, that we are to beseech the Lord through our prayers that He might deliver what we ask of Him.  I once heard a radio pastor refer to this as Prosperity Theology, but I do not know anyone who has gotten rich praying for God to provide for them.  Certainly I haven't.  Along the way, however, I realized that God did indeed provide for me when I needed Him to.  Yet the provision which He often provided usually didn't fall in line with what I was praying for.  See, I was praying for stuff like that new car, good clothes and higher credit and all the while God was doing nothing but providing for my food, shelter and income.  Indeed, my own requests of God overshadowed the day to day provision which He was blessing me with.  Of course, my own desires didn't seem too concerned with what I needed to survive.  Could I eat a car?  Probably not.  These days Facebook and social media are full of posts telling people to "Pray their way to prosperity."  Not to be outdone, more than a few well known pastors have jumped on the prosperity theology bandwagon and began to preach their own form of pray your way to wealth programs.  God is generous.  God created everything.  Pray that He gives you your share!  There is also a dangerous consequence in seeing God as nothing more than a bank account, which I will get to soon.  Not every congregation admits to seeing God as a resource that can be tapped, but they use Him as such nonetheless.  So it is that we have come to see God as simply One who gives us what we ask of Him.  Name it and claim it has become the order of the day.  

Whence are the battles and whence the fightings among you?  Are they not hence:  from your gratifications warring in your members?  You are coveting and have not, you are murdering and are jealous, and you can not encounter it.  You are fighting and battling, and you have not, because of not requesting. 

James 4: 1-2, Concordant New Testament 

There came a time in my belief in this prosperity theology where it smacked me square in the face.  As my mother lay sick in a care facility I often prayed that God would relieve her pain and deliver her from her circumstances.  In my thinking, that meant her being pain free and returning home to a life she wanted.  Never once did I attempt to see things from the Lords perspective.  I was doing what I had been taught, I was praying for Gods provision.  This is exactly what I was doing the night my mother passed away.  Suddenly, name it and claim it meant nothing to me.  I was angry with God for what I saw as His ignoring my prayer requests.  He had let me down.  How could I believe and trust in a God who would lie to me?  THIS is the consequence we face for trusting in prosperity theology.  When we see God more for what He can do for us than what He has already done.  We see God as a blank check for anything we might want or need.  This is NOT the God of scripture.  The God I now know is a loving God who has provided for me all which I ever will have.  My prayers for His provision may be in vain, for He knows my requests even before I ask.  Then what do we say of prayer?  Is it simply a gateway to the Father for our next request?  The Fathers desire is not to be a name it and claim it gift giver.  No, the true desire of the Lord is that His children would be one with He and His Son {John 17:21}.  Once we have this realization, our perspective will shift from a God who provides to a Father who loves.  

After my mother passed, a good friend consoled me in my grief.  I told him that I was angry with God for not honoring my prayers for my mothers healing.  He asked me what prayers God had failed to honor.  I told him, that my mothers pain would be healed and that she would be delivered from her situation.  It was then that I realized the gift God had truly given her.  Answered prayer.  

~Scott~