From Hell with Love...

I've had many well-intentioned people tell me (directly or indirectly) that once you become a Christian, your life becomes wonderful. All the old problems go away as we come into the Kingdom, right? We no longer live under the spiritual and material poverty of the past, because God comes in and fixes all that.

Well, it's true that God's principals lead to blessings in this world as well as the next, but it's not without struggles. Sometimes the Father takes us from our life of destitution and lifts us into a position that we couldn't have attained. Other times, He lets us struggle with the opposition. For example, one person may come to know the Lord and immediately be cured of their alcohol addiction. Another comes to know the Lord, yet struggles with alcohol for life.

Does God love one more than the other? Or does He allow us to struggle? This I know:
  • God will not give us more than we can handle
  • Every time I expect that life is somehow supposed to be easy, I'm setting myself up for disappointment... this world resists my efforts and the entire order of the cosmos is against all followers of Christ!
  • Christ has overcome the world!
  • He gives me strength to carry on!
  • We are to count ourselves worthy to suffer with Him!!!
I don't know about you, but I don't always want to count myself worthy... especially when I'm in the midst of the suffering! It's usually only before or after that suffering that I feel privileged. But that's not the attitude I'm called to have... my "attitude should be like Christ Jesus". Christ denied Himself many comforts and underwent suffering undeservedly for our sakes. Similarly, we bear greatest witness not in our prosperity, but in how we choose to deny ourselves in the midst of prosperity. We bear great witness to our Hope as we persevere in His Ways during our suffering.

We can expect to suffer... and we can rejoice in this: that we sometimes know we're on the right path just because of the opposition we feel along the way. It is a long distance run which we run... run with perseverance! Do not stop when you reach an obstacle: go through it or around it! Either way, continue the race that's marked out for you because you are surrounded by a huge crowd of witnesses! And count yourself privileged to fight this battle for the Lord God and King, Who loves you and finds you worthy of the engagement. People are watching for your response: little children, office acquaintances, and other suffering believers.

The prosperity gospel, that promises prosperity once you become a Christian is a lie straight from Hell. Many well-intentioned people preach this false gospel, but it's not the message that Jesus or the early Church taught. From Hell with love... that's what a prosperity gospel is. Don't buy into it.

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