Mouthpiece

HT Tim Challies

Does God Want Me Happy?

Is Joel Olsteen right? Does God want me (and you) to be happy above all else?  Not so fast, says Tim Keller:

“Is God committed to your happiness? Absolutely, and yet if you come to him to make you happy, you’re coming to a false god. If you say, ‘Well, I’m interested in this Christianity, and maybe I’ll come and bite on it if I can see it will help me reach my goals and make me happy.’ You’re not coming to God; you’re coming to a butler. Either God exists or he doesn’t exist. If he doesn’t exist you can’t come to him for happiness, right? But if he does exist, you have to realize you must come to him because he created you, and therefore, he owns you.

To not come to him and obey him would be an injustice. The only way to come to God rightly, the real God, is to come without conditions and to say, ‘Forget happiness. I owe you everything.’ There are only two ways to come to God. You can come to God on the basis of saying, ‘I owe you everything; you owe me nothing,’ or you can come on the basis of saying, ‘I’m going to come to you, but then you owe me a lot.’ The only way for you to know on what basis you have come is to see what happens in the bad seasons.

When things go wrong, do you get upset and say, ‘What good did it do me to come to church? What good did it do me to read the Bible?’ Do you know what that shows? You came to him on the basis of saying, ‘I will do this and this, as you owe me.’ In other words you’re saying, ‘My number one priority is happiness, and I’m using God as a way to get there’ as opposed to saying, ‘My number one priority is to serve God, and if happiness happens, great. To the degree it happens, great.’

Here is the irony: the less you’re concerned about your happiness and the more you’re concerned about him, the happier you get. This is not a trick. You can’t say, ‘Oh, great. I have it. I come to God, and I say this and this and this.’ You cannot bandy with the omnipotent and omniscient Lord of the universe. ‘Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.’ Happiness is a by-product.”

HT: Peter Cockrell

That Feel Good Message

From Radio Free Babylon

(Click to Enlarge)

A Tuesday Link List

Some random links from my Internet browsing:

How to Listen to Joel Osteen Unto the Glory of God

Why Won't God Just Tell Me What to Do?

Matthew 18 and the Internet

How Many Chinese Christians Are There?

Lot's of other bloggers post these link lists. Perhaps it is time for me to make an occasional foray into this style of blogging. What do you think?

Identity Defined by the Word

Contra to Joel Osteen and most American pop-psychology, having proper self image is not just pumping up "self esteem," but instead believing both the good and bad of God's proclamation about who we are.  I like and agree with what Jared Wilson said at You Are Who God Says You Are (is Not Osteenism):

We are who God says we are.

Does that sound like Joel Osteen to you? Whenever I say something along those lines, someone asks me if I'm not just dipping into the shallow dredge of self-esteem. But no. When I want to know who I am, I dip into the well of the external word in the gospel. God declares me a sinner deserving of hell. Nobody can say anything worse to me than this, really. God declares me a beloved child, a joint-heir with his Son, and eternally secure to future glorification with Him. Nobody can say anything better to me than this.

Cornelius Plantinga says, "We are redeemed sinners. But we are redeemed sinners."

Because of Christ, I am free to confess that I am a sinner deserving the wrath of God but I am also free from both sin and wrath. Why do some Christians think that to seek our identity in Christ, the way the Scriptures say we ought to, is thinking too much of ourselves? Why are they afraid to trust what God says about them? When God says to his people, "whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye" (Zech. 2:8), am I to think he doesn't mean it? Why ought we to side with the devil in accusing ourselves as if the gospel is not true? As Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, we need to stop listening to ourselves and start talking to ourselves!

 So today I am going to echo God's word abut me and talk to myself!  How about you?

Preacher Humor - It's a Joke!

If you are not going to talk about sin and the Cross, you might as well tell some good jokes.

Hat Tip: The Sacred Sandwich

Shallow Theology

The IMonk posted at The Review 90% of Evangelicals Won’t Write, quoting from Newsweek's review of Victoria Osteen's new book. Hearing stuff like this is why I have not and will not bother with reading Joel or Victoria Osteen's books.

Newsweek reviews Victoria Osteen’s new book. Thank God for Newsweek’s willingness to say what 90% of evangelicals won’t say.

With that story, Victoria unconsciously articulates the problem so many outsiders have with Joel and, by extension, with her. Joel Osteen is one of the most popular pastors in the country, but both he and Victoria seem, from the outside at least, to be spiritual midgets. More than 40,000 people come to hear them preach each week in a sanctuary that used to be the home of the Houston Rockets. Millions more watch them on television. Joel’s books are best sellers, and Victoria’s new one, though arriving in stores this week, is already high on Amazon’s spiritual book list. But the theology driving all this success is thin. Over and over, in sermons, books and television interviews, the Osteens repeat their most firmly held beliefs. If you pray to Jesus, you’ll get what you want.