Piper on the Prosperity Gospel

This video is powerful, and true. And another thing that worries me about the prosperity gospel is that it is often hidden under the framework of God being a ticket out of suffering (hell). People don’t want to go to hell, so they “accept” Jesus, instead of Him being their treasure in life, and death. Jesus is not all we need plus all of the things we have in this life. In the words of Paul Washer, “Jesus is all we have!” Every Christian is a person who has taken up his cross and followed after Christ, and we must be reminded of this. The cross is not fun and games and wealth and comfort, it is suffering, and this suffering is a particular means that God uses to glorify himself in his people.
Romans 5:5 “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 8:16-18 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
1 Timothy 1:8-9 “Therfore do not be ashamed of the tesitmony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,”

Look at this text
Philippians 3:7-11 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith–that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

After you watch this video, watch the video on the blog IrishCalvinist which fits well with this one. May we examine our hearts and seek to live lives in which God is glorified in our suffering, not because of the pretty lives we have with the pretty things in it, but because we have the most valuable thing there is.

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