One Life

A brother wrote saying that he didn’t have the same view of Joel Osteen. Here’s the brief response I just sent:

Hey brother thanks for the email. I’d encourage you to listen/read carefully what he teaches. In just this video clip he says that the non-abundant life includes “struggling in finances” and struggling with “bodily sickness” and other things. This is pretty clearly health/wealth gospel that is something to be very careful about. Struggling in finances and struggling in health are very very common not just human and also oftentimes very Christian struggles. If suffering is the antithesis of Christianity then what about Paul? What about Christ? There is the core of the Gospel that is missing most of all in his teaching. We are sinners spiritually dead without Christ. Christ died taking the punishment of sin upon the cross that was demanded by the holiness and justice of God. By faith in Christ alone we are forgiven for our sins and made alive in Him. “Alive” is spiritual life in Christ in restored relationship to the Father. Christ calls us to take up our crosses daily and follow Him. (This is a call to die to ourselves and our self-centered focus. Osteen is preaching self-centeredness and worldly comfort). Is this the Gospel that Osteen preaches? If you find the true Gospel please do let me know – I’d love to see it and will certainly rethink my perspective on him. But do know that most of evangelicalism is seeing his teaching as at best devoid of the true Gospel and at worst a deception in leading people to health and wealth.

I think that it’s possible for Christians to come to Osteen’s teaching with a true orthodox understanding of the Gospel and the Bible and maybe hear things that he says in a positive way, but it seems there’s a pattern of questionable teaching that should caution us.

Let me know what you find as you dig more!

Michael

Friends,

Yesterday in our team prayer meeting (which occurs every Monday morning at 10 am) we were talking about the Gospel. And I remembered one thing that I believe Mark Dever mentioned in one of his Desiring God talks which is that no matter how loving and kind and Jesus-like you try to be in your witness to non-Christian friends and family members and strangers at the end of the day until you verbally share the Gospel message with them, they have NOT heard the Gospel. Whether you are a missionary or a Christian in the US, it behooves us to not just in our lives live out a Gospel witness but to actually share the Gospel with those we love and those who are lost without Christ. It’s a good reminder even on the mission field as we can become scared of losing relationships with people (and scared of losing face) in sharing the Gospel. But the Gospel really is tremendously good news. I think once we get over ourselves it becomes a much less fearful thing.

Here’s a quick youtube video that illustrates the point well I think. It’s a “testimony” from Penn who is a famous magician (and atheist) talking about a genuinely “good guy” who gifted him with a Bible.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHS8adO3…

Another youtube moment to share with you. I ran across many many youtube videos of young people opening their “mission call” letters to see where in the world they will be serving as missionaries. There is excitement and celebration surrounded by friends and family members. There is willingness to do anything and go anywhere. The only problem is that these videos are young people going as Mormon missionaries. Mormons are required to give 2 years of missionary service. All young men without exception. I wonder why the Gospel alone is not motivation enough for those of us who truly know Christ to move a whole generation of young people to serve Christ to the ends of the world? And to move all Christians to take up the call to be mission senders?

Here’s one example of a Mormon call:

Finally I wanted to give you an update on our finances. THANK YOU to all of you who have increased your support and/or sent in one-time gifts! THANK YOU!!! We had a great December and January of giving which makes it much less likely that we’ll be pulled back to the US. We still have to see though how giving goes in the next few months and also in particular how the dollar/yen rate progresses. We’re thankful to a friend who recently left Japan and gave us his car. That allowed us to give our car to the Kim family who in turn after selling their car in the US before coming to serve in Japan donated the proceeds of that sale to our family account which was a huge help. God is good!

Related to finances I wanted to share one more alarming youtube video with you from Joel Osteen. He’s been quite a popular preacher globally, but he represents a very dangerous threat to the faith in the “Prosperity Gospel” message that he preaches. Essentially it teaches that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy. If so then Jesus was a total failure.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support. It’s been a precious few weeks for Pearl and me to enjoy no travels and LOTS of family time. I’m not planning to going much of anywhere for a long while….

Michael

PS – in case you haven’t yet seen pictures from the DG conference or the video my talk, here are the links:
 http://www.facebook.com/photos/?ref=sb#/…

 http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibra…

Just wanted to let you know of our new ministry website (as lots of the info on my blog is a bit dated).  I’ll try to continue to post prayer requests and updates to this site, but the most recent info and descriptions of our ministry are on our new site.  Also please check out our new CBI video on the site under media.

Thanks!

Here’s the address:
 http://www.cbijapan.org/jointheteam

I posted the link on my blogroll to the right as well for easy access.

Friends,

THANK YOU for your prayers for my talks at the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference.  It’s done!  And God was amazingly gracious.  All yesterday I was feeling so tired with a headache and starting to feel quite overwhelmed.  There were over 1600 pastor’s at this year’s conference and looking out at them I could start to feel and comprehend the tremendous joy and opportunity and burden of the possible implications of this talk – how God could use this to impact their lives and the more than 100,000 members of their congregations.  Global implications if the Lord would so choose to effect.  In my prayers I asked God “what in the world am I doing here?!”  It was a sweet preparation of my heart though in feeling so incredibly small and inadequate and to rest again in the bigness and greatness of God.  The seminar last night went so well.  I really just enjoyed the whole time.  There was a great turnout with many more people than seats.  But then late to bed and early to rise for my plenary talk.  After a wonderful prayer time with John Piper and the other speakers we headed out to the hall.  The Lord so blessed me through the singing (“strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord” and “We rest on Thee”).  All of the nervousness and trepidation of the day before was gone and as John Piper prayed the Lord granted me freedom in my talk.  Thank you for praying for my voice as well!  I had a stronger and more resilient voice than almost any time I can remember in recent months.  Plus for 68 minutes I was able to trumpet out 100% of what was in my heart through my voice.  What a huge blessing!

I need to get to bed, but I just wanted to write quickly to say thank you thank you thank you for praying.  I’ll share more about my experiences when I get back.  I leave at 1 pm tomorrow for Japan.  I’ll arrive in Japan Friday night at 8 pm.  Can’t WAIT to see Pearl and the kids (and be home for a nice long stretch of no travel!)

You can see my talk on video or audio on the DG website -

 
 http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1624_mis…

With heavenly affection,

Michael