A few weeks ago I saw something on social media that was so shocking that I simply could not ignore it. Someone I knew many years ago posted one of those poster things (I think they call them memes) that showed a pile of money, a huge pile of money, and said something to the effect of 'if you share this God will bless you with wealth'.
I have seen many things online, and heard them in person, that implied this very thing but until that day I had never seen one that was quite so blatant before. I've asked myself many, many times how anyone with half an ounce of sense can believe in the prosperity/name it and claim it gospel. How can people look at the everyday sufferings of others and not see that prosperity or health do not come from you simply saying 'I want this' and getting it, or worse, saying 'I want this in the name of jesus' and getting it. Even Christ himself, with the ability to perform miracles, wasn't that...I don't even know what to call it...selfish, rude, demanding...SINFUL.
Christ was so anguished over what was about to befall Him that He not only prayed in the garden of Gethsemane but He SWEATED BLOOD. Look up the cause of a human sweating blood. It is brought on through extreme anxiety and emotional distress.
So there was our Lord, in human form, so anguished, so upset, so...hurting, that He begged God to 'take this cup from me' and sweating blood over what was about to happen and NEVER did He say, 'I claim...this...in the name of jesus.' Never did He say that He would be saved from agony, from torture, from death, because He claimed the right to it.
Where does this idea even come from?
I don't know the history of the name it and claim it/prosperity gospel, and I don't have enough interest in it to look it up (if any of you reading this happen to know where and how it got started maybe you can share what you know in the comments of this article), but what I do know is that this system of belief has spread until it has infected everything.
I'm sure there are many atheists out there that would say it has not infected them but our society is so wrapped up in receiving blessings today that I can barely bring myself to use the world blessing anymore. I love the word. I love the true meaning behind it, or at least the Biblical meaning behind it, but like Scripture, it has been so twisted today that I can hardly use the word because I know that anyone seeing or hearing me use it is liable to assume I use it in the same way that the majority of people today use it.
This past winter I had a relative tell me that I 'deserved' a shopping cart full of shoes and clothes and that they wanted to buy them for me to 'bless me'. I very much appreciated what they were trying to do for me, I enjoyed the time spent with that person while shopping, but being told that I 'deserved' what they were trying to buy me and that they wanted to 'bless' me by buying things for me, things I really didn't need, made me uncomfortable.
As this relative told me I 'deserved' a cart full of shoes, I thought of Christ and how He lived. I thought of what I truly deserved. And shoe-wise, all I could think of was that I only deserved to go barefoot.
Yesterday, I saw something written by the wife of a preacher at a 'church' that I used to enjoy going to. The first time I ever went to that 'church' my guard was up. I had had bad experiences in 'church' before and wasn't at all sure I wanted to be going to another one. I didn't know the things then that I know now but I knew enough to know that many 'churches' do not follow Scripture. As I sat in the congregation that first day, the preacher stood on the stage and held up his Bible, he said, 'if it's in this book, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, than it's true and we should follow it,' or something to that effect. That single statement by that preacher was the determining factor in my going back to that 'church'. They taught from Scripture and that was what I wanted.
There was lots of idolatry in that 'church', plenty of Scripture twisting, and who knows what all else, but at that time in my life, it met my needs, or at least I thought it did. I can't even say I went to that 'church' because the people were friendly. They were, eventually, but that first day, when I visited that 'church' for the first time, no one spoke a word to me or anyone in my family. There were no smiles of greetings. There were no hello's, no handshakes, no hugs, no welcome's of any kind. We were simply there.
Now, I read that the preacher's wife is writing that her baby is better, from a day long bout of vomiting, because they 'claimed healing in jesus' name'.
Do they REALLY think that's how it works?
If a person is healed simply because another person claims healing in jesus' name for them...why do people die from cancer? Why do people die of heart problems? Why do they die of infections? Of wounds? Of colds? Flu? Pneumonia? Starvation? Malnutrition?
If this preachers wife...or whoever the 'they' is that she said 'claimed healing' for her baby...can heal her baby of a virus by claiming that healing than they are some powerful miracle workers. Why aren't they using those miraculous powers to heal all the people in the world of the diseases and illnesses that they suffer from? Why don't they use those powers to heal the woman in their 'church' that suffers from severe chronic pain and other medical conditions? Why don't they use it to heal the people that come through their 'church' doors in wheelchairs, on canes, or simply sniffling from a cold?
If a person really had the power to heal someone by 'claiming' that healing...wouldn't they be able to do it for every person they encountered? Christ healed everyone. Even the woman that simply touched His robe was healed. He cured blindness, paralysis, leprosy, even death. Where is that miraculous healing in those that 'claim' healing today?
Don't get me wrong, I believe in prayer. I believe prayer works. I believe prayer can create miracles. But I don't believe that we can 'speak' some perverted idea of what prayer is to a 'god' or 'jesus' that isn't the God or Jesus of Scripture and demand to be given what we want by tacking 'jesus' onto our demand and be given what we are requesting, if request can even be the word used to describe what is done in these so-called prayers.
From my own observations, it seems to me that this name it and claim it style of gospel has invaded all forms of 'christian' religion. I have thought many times of holding a poll to see what denomination people claim to be, at least I would like to see a poll done among a certain group of people that I know profess to be 'Christians' and yet subscribe to the belief system that they can 'speak' anything into being, or 'claim' what they want.
I find it amazing that anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Scripture can believe that they can 'speak' something into happening. Does it fail to escape their notice that only God spoke and something happened? I'm looking at my computer as I write this but if I 'speak' and tell my computer to become a new couch or to go do the laundry, guess what? Nothing happens. My computer is still a computer.
If I go to visit my grandmother and I tried to 'speak' good health over her, it wouldn't change the conditions that age has brought to her body and mind. If I were to 'claim' healing for those conditions nothing would happen. My voice has no power to heal or to bring about wealth or health. My thoughts have no power to do so. My emotions have no power to do so.
I suppose those that believe in that type of thing would say that I couldn't do it because I don't have a deep enough faith that what I am saying or claiming will happen. They would be right. I have zero faith that such nonsense works and I would never so much as think those sorts of things much less actually say or, worse, pray them.
But people do those very things every day. And they delude themselves and others into believing that they lack faith because they did not get what they demanded or asked. I can only imagine the devastation such belief, such teachings, must bring to parents who sit 'praying healing' over a dying child, who pour all the faith they have into those 'prayers' believing with everything in them that 'jesus' will heal their child...and they watch that child take its final breath and die. What devastation must those beliefs bring to the wife that lays beside her husband, praying health into him, over him, pouring her faith into those 'prayers', as her husband's breathing takes on the rattles of the final moments before his life on earth is no more and she is left to face the world alone. How about the devastation that is caused when a husband holds his dying wife in his arms, loving her, pouring a lifetime of faith in 'jesus' into his 'prayers' for his wife, begging the 'god' he places all his faith in, pulling on every ounce of faith he has, to heal her as she bleeds to death in his arms.
And I say devastation in those statements, not because of the deaths those people experience, but because when we place our entire faith in anything, and that faith fails to deliver the expected result, we lose faith. And when a belief system is taught that 'god' or 'jesus' will heal if only a person believes strongly enough...what happens when all the faith that person can muster does not heal their loved one?
Faith in the Lord has to start somewhere. A mental faith that does not reach the heart is a beginning. I know that true faith is only given through the Lord. I know that salvation comes only through Him and His plan. But faith must always start somewhere. There is a beginning to a person's faith. And even a wrong faith that starts in 'jesus' can grow into a true faith. But what happens when a person believes in the 'jesus' that they have been taught, believes in him with everything in them, and that 'jesus' lets them down? What point is there to having any faith at all?
So maybe someone dying or some other extreme calamity is something that is understandable to shake anyone's faith. Well, yes, and no. It might shake a true Christians faith but it won't destroy it. But even still, a death or other extreme adversity, may be, some would argue, enough to test anyone, or to turn them away. Well, then...what of the prosperity gospel? What of those that post things online, and say them in person, of how 'god' will take care of all their bills within the next x number of days, or how if they will just share this or do that than 'god' will give them more riches than they know what to do with? What of those that think that if they just believe strong enough 'god' will give them a new car or a new house or...whatever it is that their heart desires?
Over a hundred years ago, Charles Spurgeon, told what was then the largest 'church' congregation ever, “I believe that it is anti-Christian and unholy for any Christian to live with the object of accumulating wealth. You will say, ‘Are we not to strive all we can to get all the money we can?’ You may do so. I cannot doubt but what, in so doing, you may do service to the cause of God. But what I said was that to live with the object of accumulating wealth is anti-Christian.”
Scripture says that we cannot love both God and money. In the Gospel books of Scripture we see time and again where Christ tells His disciples to leave all that they have and go. They were to leave all to follow Him. They were to go out and preach taking NOTHING with them. Christ spoke of how He had nowhere to lay His head. He...had...no...home. The greatest man that ever lived was HOMELESS. He spoke of giving away your clothes, saying if a man has none and you have two you should give him one of yours. If a person owned only one set of clothes they would have nothing to change into to even wash their clothes. Can you imagine how ragged and dirty they would look in a very short amount of time, wearing the same outfit day after day after day?
Did Christ look like the dirtiest, raggedest, tattered, homeless person you can imagine? Did His disciples?
Does this sound like a Jesus that wants to 'bless' you with wealth or a new car or house? Personally, I can't see the Christ of Scripture giving a single thought to your wealth. Scripture says that we are to be content with food and clothing. It does not say we should demand of the God that created all of...everything...that we want a newer car, a bigger house, more shoes, expensive clothes, or the latest electronics. Scripture never says that we should take nice vacations to 'get away' from it all. And I see nowhere in Scripture where Jesus ever blessed anyone with anything materialistic. He did not heal the beggar than set him up in a mansion. He did not heal the woman afflicted with bleeding than give her the keys to a Ferrari. He did not heal the blind man and send him to some exotic location to vacation. He simply healed them and sent them on their way to whatever life they already had, or to make a new life now that they were healed.
And yet, today people believe that they 'deserve' material things, money, wealth, even health because...well, why would they think they deserve it? Because they are them? Because they live? Because they breathe? Because they are a 'good person'? What reason could they possibly have for believing that they 'deserve' any of the things they demand of their 'god'?
There are some people, and some 'churches', that take this style of belief to the extreme. They are the name it and claim it people, the prosperity gospel people. If that was as far as it went we might just wave it away, sadly, but understanding as best we can that they are deluded, but that isn't as far as it goes. This twisted, self serving, self fulfilling, self promoting, gospel has trickled into the beliefs and mindset of the majority of people in America, even those that would vehemently deny any connection to Christianity.
This gospel that teaches that a person should have health and wealth because they 'deserve' it, that they should be happy at all costs, is a gospel that is not taught in Scripture. It is a gospel that has invaded our country, invaded those that call themselves 'Christians' and those that deny all forms of 'Christianity'. It is filling 'church' buildings of all denominations. It is infecting professing 'Christians' like a plague that sweeps through a country, killing hundreds, thousands, as it runs its course and is passed from one person to another. It is a plague that is just as deadly as any illness ever was and it has reached epidemic proportions. This is not the gospel of Scripture. It is a gospel that leads straight to hell and people are falling for it by the thousands.
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