Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Robotization of God
Some has seen God as if he were a machine responding to their commands. They have done with God what they do with a Machine Teller.
They come to God with a password which was given to them, inculcated, and press the “buttons of the secrets of God” and try to get what they want.
Many are the promoters of this kind of gospel, gospel of passwords, keys, secrets, movements, the gospel of those who have found out “what to do to have what they want”.
The God of the Bible has never been an instrument in the hands of anybody, never was obliged to do anything, never betrayed His own words that we could press Him to get what we desire.
Yet, we have to have in mind that if we want to enjoy the facilities of a Machine Teller, we have to have credit. The money we cash there is fruit of our work, the result of what we do for living.
I remember once that my son said: Dad, it’s just to press the button, so why don’t you take out more money?
My son could not realize that to take money or more money out, we would have to have worked for that. First we work, produce (bare fruit) and then we have what to take out.
I suppose that with God it is not different. If we want something from Him, we are not going to have it if we don’t have credit with Him, if we don’t deserve it.
Deserve here can’t be understood that we can reach something from God by means of our deeds, but it has to be understood that the undeserved favor of God, His grace, is within us because we are in Him by free choice and now the grace brings forth fruit in us glorifying God.
Deserve here is understood as we have to understand Jesus’ teaching to the woman he delivered from her sins and from the Pharisees’ hands to kill her, “go and do not sin anymore”. There was condition for things continue going well for her, it was not sinning again as a result of following Jesus with all her soul.
It doesn’t mean that God is demanding something in exchange for what He did and yet is going to do for us; it is that there isn’t any way of following Jesus without being with our whole soul and heart. If our following Him is not this way, it can not produce legitimate fruit and consequently it will not bring legitimate God’s blessings upon us.
Deserve here is to serve Him without bargaining (only Him knows which is our intention) and then His mercy simply makes us deserve his blessings. How to bring forth fruit and receive his blessings without faith? It is the simple, dependent faith, unclothed of any self-interest that makes us be in credit, credit which is not our ultimate goal, but that it is at our reach justly because it is not our major goal. Our ultimate goal is to be with Him because He is our all in all. This is the kind of fruit, the sort of production that must appear in our lives if we want to be targets of His love, and we only can get this fruit and production when we depend on Him (which is a constant battle within us).
Back to which I was discussing before, and reinforcing what I have already said, we have credit with God when we produce truth, integrity, and sincerity. This is to seek the kingdom of God firstly and have the other things added.
God is not a machine that simply responds to simple codes such as: I determine, it is done, it is broken, I order, get out this, get out that; how to receive if there isn’t enough fund and maybe my account is already blocked?
We can only reap what we have planted. But many have taught to reap, to have, to determine victory, prosperity in order to acquire a car, a house without sowing true gospel, planting the true gospel, and so by God’s mercy reap.
Look, he who lives the true gospel has his search centered in the truth, in the Lord, and not in that that He can give; the center is who He is.
Therefore, God is not a cybergod at our disposal with a pleasant interface and whether it is not pleasant we adapt as we wish.
The Lord said: I am the Lord and there is no one but me.
How to cope with this?
Choosing whom to serve, to God and His Christ and His word or to a gospel of appearance only, which has been transmuted from time to time according to the will of self-seeking people. Pity that many people of good will allow themselves to be taken by what is apparent only.
It is time to us to ask ourselves if we are evangelicals only (evangelicals only have allowed themselves to go into any context of newness) or if we are of the Gospel. It seems that being of the Gospel is old-fashioned today, it is to have lost track of the “glorious walking of the church on the face of the Earth”, it is not understanding the times, understanding the “final anointment”.
How to cope with this?
Making a choice for what is true even that we have to go out of scene, even that we have to stop (apparently) doing what everybody was used to seeing us to do and for which we were praised. If what we used to do and still do was not or is not centered in being of the gospel, it’s not worth going on.
But whether the case is not to stop, let us change our attitude, even that our attitude change makes us to be stopped.
We will be doing more for God if we are able to live more intensely the truth, which doesn’t necessarily means appearance, signs, to be prosperous, the way it is emphasized nowadays.
How to cope with this?
Rejecting a sort of steward god, the robotized Christ, man’s servant that the evangelical religion of many has tried to put as true in these days of lack of discernment.
Some time ago, I read an article about the three Rs of victory (not three Vs, and also not an article concerning simple victory keys) that fits well in this context. They were:
R of recognizing, R of rejecting, and R of resisting.
We can only win (or at least we fight to) recognizing the situation we are involved in; we can only win rejecting such situation; we can only win resisting the offers belonging to which we recognized and rejected.
So, if we realize that the kind of gospel I described in the beginning of this text is not a gospel that really feeds the soul, it is not true and from the truth, we have to recognize that it isn’t of any good, leaving to us, to reject it and resist it.
When the Lord is not the primacy, we end up like those who Paul the apostle didn’t dare to compare himself with and didn’t want those following Christ’s teachings, who he preached to, did: “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10.12).
Therefore, whatever we do spiritually can only be associated to which predominates in the religious world, in the evangelical world, if it passes in the test (specifically and exclusively) of association to and comparison with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and this only occurs when we are ready to lose for gaining (Mark 8.35), because according to the Gospel there isn’t real gain just because the majority, apparently, is gaining; on the contrary, what really is taken into account in the Gospel is the legitimacy of the gain.
To conclude, it is worth reminding that “the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, And the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; The LORD alone will be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2.17), because “[…] know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4.39).
May God give us victory so that we may transmit with all our heart, with all our strength, something more resembled with which Jesus taught, the apostles taught than what we have seen and may have lived.
José Martins
Saturday, October 6, 2007
The message of The Secret has already been manifested in Gospel preachings
You’re a visual being, you have to visualize what you want. Delete the negative image of this or that. What do you want? Money, house, a car, a good job? You have to visualize it. Create a picture in your mind of what you want. God wanted that Abraham visualized the great nation he would be. Abraham only got God’s promises after learning this.
More or less this was the message I heard two months ago. Is it Gospel? Any resemblance with The Secret book is only mere coincidence.
What a spiritual poorness to try to fit the message of Christ with positivist speculations!
It is outrageous to see how preachers of “another gospel”, which is not the gospel of the Bible, who have seized TV broadcasting space, where it could be delivered the gospel of freedom, teach speculations that Jesus never taught in order to attract incautious and desperate people, seeking immediate solutions for their lives.
They are preachers of a gospel of marketing in which what matters the much is the figures (of people as well as of dollars they can get).
If visualize and visualize were the answer, all positivist philosophy followers would be rich. But who has become rich are the proponents of these teachings. And the worst news is that this is around the country (Brazil). And how it makes churches to be packed!
This message runs over everything, even the truth (but the truth in the end will prevail) in order to achieve its intended goals.
These preachers came up with more one thing to believers get stressed: the production of images – Oh, I have to visualize this and that; I can’t make this or that image or I won’t reach my goals (which usually are material ones).
I had already expected to hear this kind of message from the mouth of preachers after the release of The Secret. It didn’t take too long. The resemblance is astonishing. Is the Spirit of Christ inspiring them this way? I don’t think so. I think it is the spirit of self interest that is boosting them to do this, the spirit of exaltation (not of Christ’s humbleness in their lives), the spirit of greed, of self projection …
Where are we going to end up? Every day something new comes out, another newness. This newness dynamic is which has fed this prosperity gospel and has maintained it strong during the years, despite the fact that there are many people frustrated with the few concrete results it has brought to their lives.
Taking into account the time the gospel of prosperity has been preached in Brazil, believers had to be the richest and the most influential people in the country. It did not happened and has not happened because IT WAS NOT THE MESSAGE THAT JESUS PREACHED!!
José Carlos Martins
More or less this was the message I heard two months ago. Is it Gospel? Any resemblance with The Secret book is only mere coincidence.
What a spiritual poorness to try to fit the message of Christ with positivist speculations!
It is outrageous to see how preachers of “another gospel”, which is not the gospel of the Bible, who have seized TV broadcasting space, where it could be delivered the gospel of freedom, teach speculations that Jesus never taught in order to attract incautious and desperate people, seeking immediate solutions for their lives.
They are preachers of a gospel of marketing in which what matters the much is the figures (of people as well as of dollars they can get).
If visualize and visualize were the answer, all positivist philosophy followers would be rich. But who has become rich are the proponents of these teachings. And the worst news is that this is around the country (Brazil). And how it makes churches to be packed!
This message runs over everything, even the truth (but the truth in the end will prevail) in order to achieve its intended goals.
These preachers came up with more one thing to believers get stressed: the production of images – Oh, I have to visualize this and that; I can’t make this or that image or I won’t reach my goals (which usually are material ones).
I had already expected to hear this kind of message from the mouth of preachers after the release of The Secret. It didn’t take too long. The resemblance is astonishing. Is the Spirit of Christ inspiring them this way? I don’t think so. I think it is the spirit of self interest that is boosting them to do this, the spirit of exaltation (not of Christ’s humbleness in their lives), the spirit of greed, of self projection …
Where are we going to end up? Every day something new comes out, another newness. This newness dynamic is which has fed this prosperity gospel and has maintained it strong during the years, despite the fact that there are many people frustrated with the few concrete results it has brought to their lives.
Taking into account the time the gospel of prosperity has been preached in Brazil, believers had to be the richest and the most influential people in the country. It did not happened and has not happened because IT WAS NOT THE MESSAGE THAT JESUS PREACHED!!
José Carlos Martins
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Quantum Physics and Prosperity Proponents
Quantum Physics (quantum mechanics) is in the loop for many spiritualists, esoteric proponents and it is making its way in the evangelical grounds in order to explain miracles and how to receive them.
But what is quantum physics about?
Amir O. Caldeira, professor of the Gleb Wataghin Physics Institute of the Unicamp (University of Campinas – Brazil), defines it as being “the theory that describes the behavior of matter within the scale of minute things, that is, it is the physics of matter components: atoms, molecules, and nucleus ...”
He, yet, explains that without the knowledge of quantum physics we would not have CD, remote control, microwave oven, computer, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, in sum all high-tech developments.
(http://www.comciencia.br/reportagens/fisica/fisica02.htm).
And for Osvaldo Pessoa Jr. (Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Course of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences, of Sao Paulo University), quantum physics “describes microscopic objects, such as atoms, and their interaction with radiation (light etc.)”.
Therefore, it deals with microscopic, subatomic particles, which make up matter and consequently are matter as well.
Quantum physicists, through several experiments have proved that light, which is energy, despite it is not palpable, is matter. For instance, the light materiality can be felt on one’s skin, depending on the kind of light, by its heat.
Light according to quantum physics is composed of quanta, a number of measurable particles (blocks of matter) that emanate energy. Not only light but everything we can see or cannot see with our eyes in nature is made up of these blocks of minute energetic particles.
What is the relationship between this and spirituality?
The answer is that some people are using quantum physics theories in order to try to explain every kind of phenomenon, including spiritual phenomena (or supposed as such).
Almir Caldeira’s words help us to understand that this is a tendency
(http://www.comciencia.br/reportagens/fisica/fisica02.htm):
“[...] all is indicating that quantum mechanics is the correct theory to describe physic phenomena in every energy scale”.
Add to this the fact the some quantum physicists, besides being physicists, are spiritualists and, thus, they end up linking both things and theorizing about spirituality through quantum physics.
I would dare to say that the nonscientific usage of quantum physics begins at this very point where, in my point of view, speculation gains ground.
Many of these speculators claim that the elements forming what we desire and want are in the universe and through our thoughts (which for some are also matter, since the manifestation of thoughts can be observed by electronic apparatus) we can make them gather together, bringing to reality (materiality) what is desired. This argument of the modern positivists is well propagated in the book and film The Secret (commented in previous posts).
Evangelicals’ bonds with prosperity theology are also being influenced, in the heat of the moment, by thoughts of quantum physics and are producing the discourse that we can bring to existence what we think.
Prosperity theology in its pursuit for innovation is using arguments based on quantum physics in an attempt to validate its discourse and practices, that is, it is trying to pass on and sell the idea that we are the owners of the miracle and that miracles only depend on us to come true; we are the ones who are going to attract the energetic material elements and then bring into existence what we want.
There are preachers of prosperity claiming that the smallest particle of matter is the sound. Therefore, for these preachers the words of desire, of faith, have the power to materialize desired things, because God created the world, and all which is in it, through the sound of his words, through the expression let there be. Such theorization, in addition to the understanding that the gospel to be preached is the gospel of the kingdom (and not only the gospel of salvation) is one of the strategies to convince neophytes and gospel workers eager for newness.
For prosperity preachers, the gospel of the kingdom is the one which brings heaven’s dimension to earth in that in heaven any sickness, poorness, lack of this or that cannot exist for just a while.
The gospel that emphasizes affirmations that bring into existence what we desire is seeking by means of quantum physics new elements in order to strengthen itself (one of the prosperity theology’s strategy to maintain itself in evidence and to go on attracting sympathizers for many years is its constant innovation, which doesn’t mean biblical foundation).
Sincere quantum physicists disagree the kind of speculation that is going on lately about spiritual things through the science they study, and they see this as just attempts to give to spiritual theories labels of scientific stuff, credibility.
Writer Marcelo Druyan, one who discusses the true and the false science, thinks the following about the usage of quantum physics to validate spiritual theories:
Pseudoscience seems to have the right to take for itself jargons of Science and make low and poor philosophy. Besides breaking down the door of valid scientific theories, they allow themselves to have a promiscuous relationship with religion and mysticism. They take definitions and concepts out of the original context to put them in different contexts, where theories attempt to prove suppositions and not to explain an experience.
Quantum Mysticism is not just a thing of the moment, it came to stay, it is there! In quantum mysticism, prayers get heaven because they take advantage of the principle of non-locality. The same occurs with telepathy and clairvoyance. Demons are the manifestation of evil which abides in a holographic universe. The saints look after everybody because “everything is in everything”. And God, at least, can play his dice game in peace, hidden in the horizon of events of a huge black hole.
http://www.ceticismoaberto.com/ceticismo/misticismo_quantico.htm
What advice does the Word of God give to us about all of this?
Peter, in his second letter (2 Peter 1:16), advises us to be cautious regarding fabricated inventions strategically organized, which he calls fables:
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
Gospel with feet steadfastly on the ground is something, it seems, that has become hard to find. The keynote today seems to be newness, it doesn’t matter how it comes; what matters are the results coming from the last thing, the thing of the moment, mainly financial results. All has showed us that leaders are being chanted not by the “truths” they have found in the innovations, but by the profits the innovations have given to their proponents. The materialization of properties, comfort and trips are things that, it seems, leaders have enjoyed more then their followers.
How can you say this? somebody could ask me. I have this impression by what it is seen today, by the fruit, by the testimony, on account of the human glory some leaders are receiving, against what they are not able to teach, demystifying wrong understandings (of their followers), that is, that they are not worthy being flattered, divinized. Or would I be materializing mistaken thoughts, which make me see a reality that in deed is not what I’ve seen, at least, in the lives of a great number of our leaders today? (Of course that those who have lived honestly according to the Gospel do not fit in this situation).
Let’s think of it!
José Martins
Sunday, July 8, 2007
He Takes Care Part IV
It is hard you see a leader to say: I am a follower of the prosperity doctrine. But what classifies a leader as sympathizer, an adherent or someone taking advantage of the fronts of this theology is mainly his or her practices, which will be the parameters to determine the extent he or she is supporting what the prosperity doctrine proposes. Among these practices is the tolerance to preachers who come to the local church emphasizing actions and practices originated from the prosperity doctrine, such as:
1- What determines prosperity is giving (to give the tithe, for stance); prosperity will come to those that give even they do not practice justice in their lives (this is the secret to prosperity, they say, based on Malachi 03); material prosperity is not in a righteous life, prayer, in being spiritual along with giving, but uniquely in giving money.
This kind of teaching helps to create believers without responsibility concerning the truth and spiritually; it helps to create worldly believers with little compassion for those who have less.
2- You have to determine and declare in order to make things come true. This kind of affirmation comes from the positivist confession which is part of the prosperity doctrine, which defends that our words can be materialized as the let there be of God was materialized during the creation. (By the way, arguments of quantum physics are being used to sustain ideas that our words can be materialized. In my point of view, believers will hear more and more about these ideas. Quantum physics will be used in an attempt to persuade believers that they can have what they want – THIS MATTER OF QUANTUM PHYSICS WILL BE DISCUSSED IN TEXTS I WILL POST AHEAD).
3- Tying the blessing to money offers at meetings specifically designed to receive blessings.
Bring your prayer request and propose to give 50, 20 or 10 dollars (not to use higher figures) and God will give you your blessing.
They are preachers who go easily and amazingly deep into God’s mind to know who God is going to bless.
Our lives should not be measured by what we have; the world already do this. The church has to have a different message for those who come in it, a message that can bring and give something different of what we find outside the church in our every day life, in our struggle for living, a message that can help us leave the church more human and more confident than when we entered it, and so through mercy, love, peace, through communion with God, abandoning sin, we can make the difference, in someway, to somebody.
It was never so necessary to be alert, watchful and steadfast concerning what the gospel really proposes to us, that is, we depending on Him, being in Him and living for Him, because He has taken care of us.
Believers matured under the circumstances of the message of the cross can discern and then they stay within the boundaries of which was revealed to them through the scriptures and they take what Paul said to the Corinthians seriously: …that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written … (1Co 4.6).
Also David Wilkerson, founder of the Teen Challenge (center of rehabilitation of drug addicted teenagers) after which the other centers existing around the world were inspired, in one of his teachings in Times Square Church, in New York, speaking about the gospel of prosperity said:
The mark of a mature believer is a refusal to be "tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine..." (Ephesians 4:14). Such believers cannot be manipulated by any teacher. They don't need to run around because they are growing up in Christ. They are feasting in green pastures. They have circumcised their ears, and they measure every teacher, every doctrine, by how much it conforms to Christ's holiness. They can discern all doctrines that are false, and they are repulsed by all the strange, new teachings. They have learned Christ. They will not be held by music, friends, personalities or miracles, but by a hunger for the pure Word.
http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts880118.html
Incentive for possessing properties based on losing inner qualities of the being, can create and accumulate poors within the church, not poors in the sense of holding tightly and not giving, but in the sense of having palpable, tangible things as their main objectives in their lives . Concerning this, Jesus recommended: "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Lucas 12.15).
If he has taken care of us, this is enough for us. The gospel is sufficient in our lives to supply us with which we need, there is no necessity of artifices, secrets, especial revelations; it is all very simple, it is the good news that Christ brought to us, nothing mysterious, nothing that everybody can not understand, it is not in the depths but it is on the surface, it is all very clear. This is what the apostle John in his first letter, chapter 5 and verse 14, teaches: Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Observe that the expressions this is the confidence / that we have are at a verbal tense, real present, which denotes factuality (certainty, reality, something that happens), showing that indeed He takes care of us. On the other hand, his care is according to his desire and not ours, which can be understood in the second part of the verse that states a condition in God’s caring of us: God’s will is manifested according to our petition nature and our petition has to be within God’s condition.
Thus:
That we have to have confidence in Him, it is unquestionable (without faith nobody can please God, Hebrew 11.6 *).
That He takes care of us is a truth Jesus stated and the contrary would be to say that the gospel is a lie, a farce.
That He knows what is better for us is something that we have do accept.
This is faith. It is to believe in the invisible hand of God guiding us. It is to rest in Him, it is not moving desperately to and fro for God’s favor, it doesn’t matter the price.
* This verse, before referring to the possibility of the occurrence of any sign (cure, gifts, prosperity) refers to the belief that God exists, that He is real, and in second place, only in second place, it refers to the fact that He is rewarder – because it belongs to God’s nature to bless. Thus, the true faith comes from the conviction that He is real; the results (the rewards) are consequence of this. The second aspect, according to the Bible, does not precede the first one; who put it first is trying to confirm God’s word to men’s theories, to self-interest, to the sight of those who walk based on what they see only.
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
It is hard you see a leader to say: I am a follower of the prosperity doctrine. But what classifies a leader as sympathizer, an adherent or someone taking advantage of the fronts of this theology is mainly his or her practices, which will be the parameters to determine the extent he or she is supporting what the prosperity doctrine proposes. Among these practices is the tolerance to preachers who come to the local church emphasizing actions and practices originated from the prosperity doctrine, such as:
1- What determines prosperity is giving (to give the tithe, for stance); prosperity will come to those that give even they do not practice justice in their lives (this is the secret to prosperity, they say, based on Malachi 03); material prosperity is not in a righteous life, prayer, in being spiritual along with giving, but uniquely in giving money.
This kind of teaching helps to create believers without responsibility concerning the truth and spiritually; it helps to create worldly believers with little compassion for those who have less.
2- You have to determine and declare in order to make things come true. This kind of affirmation comes from the positivist confession which is part of the prosperity doctrine, which defends that our words can be materialized as the let there be of God was materialized during the creation. (By the way, arguments of quantum physics are being used to sustain ideas that our words can be materialized. In my point of view, believers will hear more and more about these ideas. Quantum physics will be used in an attempt to persuade believers that they can have what they want – THIS MATTER OF QUANTUM PHYSICS WILL BE DISCUSSED IN TEXTS I WILL POST AHEAD).
3- Tying the blessing to money offers at meetings specifically designed to receive blessings.
Bring your prayer request and propose to give 50, 20 or 10 dollars (not to use higher figures) and God will give you your blessing.
They are preachers who go easily and amazingly deep into God’s mind to know who God is going to bless.
Our lives should not be measured by what we have; the world already do this. The church has to have a different message for those who come in it, a message that can bring and give something different of what we find outside the church in our every day life, in our struggle for living, a message that can help us leave the church more human and more confident than when we entered it, and so through mercy, love, peace, through communion with God, abandoning sin, we can make the difference, in someway, to somebody.
It was never so necessary to be alert, watchful and steadfast concerning what the gospel really proposes to us, that is, we depending on Him, being in Him and living for Him, because He has taken care of us.
Believers matured under the circumstances of the message of the cross can discern and then they stay within the boundaries of which was revealed to them through the scriptures and they take what Paul said to the Corinthians seriously: …that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written … (1Co 4.6).
Also David Wilkerson, founder of the Teen Challenge (center of rehabilitation of drug addicted teenagers) after which the other centers existing around the world were inspired, in one of his teachings in Times Square Church, in New York, speaking about the gospel of prosperity said:
The mark of a mature believer is a refusal to be "tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine..." (Ephesians 4:14). Such believers cannot be manipulated by any teacher. They don't need to run around because they are growing up in Christ. They are feasting in green pastures. They have circumcised their ears, and they measure every teacher, every doctrine, by how much it conforms to Christ's holiness. They can discern all doctrines that are false, and they are repulsed by all the strange, new teachings. They have learned Christ. They will not be held by music, friends, personalities or miracles, but by a hunger for the pure Word.
http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts880118.html
Incentive for possessing properties based on losing inner qualities of the being, can create and accumulate poors within the church, not poors in the sense of holding tightly and not giving, but in the sense of having palpable, tangible things as their main objectives in their lives . Concerning this, Jesus recommended: "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Lucas 12.15).
If he has taken care of us, this is enough for us. The gospel is sufficient in our lives to supply us with which we need, there is no necessity of artifices, secrets, especial revelations; it is all very simple, it is the good news that Christ brought to us, nothing mysterious, nothing that everybody can not understand, it is not in the depths but it is on the surface, it is all very clear. This is what the apostle John in his first letter, chapter 5 and verse 14, teaches: Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Observe that the expressions this is the confidence / that we have are at a verbal tense, real present, which denotes factuality (certainty, reality, something that happens), showing that indeed He takes care of us. On the other hand, his care is according to his desire and not ours, which can be understood in the second part of the verse that states a condition in God’s caring of us: God’s will is manifested according to our petition nature and our petition has to be within God’s condition.
Thus:
That we have to have confidence in Him, it is unquestionable (without faith nobody can please God, Hebrew 11.6 *).
That He takes care of us is a truth Jesus stated and the contrary would be to say that the gospel is a lie, a farce.
That He knows what is better for us is something that we have do accept.
This is faith. It is to believe in the invisible hand of God guiding us. It is to rest in Him, it is not moving desperately to and fro for God’s favor, it doesn’t matter the price.
* This verse, before referring to the possibility of the occurrence of any sign (cure, gifts, prosperity) refers to the belief that God exists, that He is real, and in second place, only in second place, it refers to the fact that He is rewarder – because it belongs to God’s nature to bless. Thus, the true faith comes from the conviction that He is real; the results (the rewards) are consequence of this. The second aspect, according to the Bible, does not precede the first one; who put it first is trying to confirm God’s word to men’s theories, to self-interest, to the sight of those who walk based on what they see only.
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
Friday, July 6, 2007
He Takes Care Part III
The Old Testament is the most explored soil for proponents of the gospel of prosperity because in the New Testament there are few arguments for this, especially in Jesus’ teachings and in Paul’s letters.
Abraham, Job, Joseph, Ester, David and Salomon are the most used characters in the apology that in the Bible there is a secret, a scheme to achieve materially what we want, just because they succeeded well.
Abraham didn’t have anything and got everything, Job always had, Joseph came out of the inner country and was lifted up to the position of second Pharaoh, Ester became a queen out of nothing, David didn’t have anything e became rich, Salomon inherited his father’s riches and made them gigantic.
All of these were well successful people who demonstrated, without doubt, and I don’t disagree with this, that God brings prosperity, because He is the almighty God and everything belongs to him.
The preachers of prosperity have forgot to look at the life of Noah, a man whose material power is not mentioned in the Bible; they have forgot to look at Moses who was and had much but left all behind in behalf of God, they have forgot Samuel who never had too much, they have forgot Elijah, what was Elijah’s treasure? They have forgot Daniel who hadn’t anything, started to have, and again he didn’t have anything, they have forgot Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many other prophets that had little. They have forgot to look at the final part of the passage of the heroes of faith mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews, 11.36-38, that says:
Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
What a contradiction these verses present in relation to what is seen today, a huge emphasis on riches, the best houses, the best cars, the best jobs, the best this and that, and too lithe emphasis on the best of the soul, of the heart, of the truth, of justice for God and for those who are around us, believers or not.
As I said before, this is a kind of gospel (not the GOSPEL) that has done that a great number of people, in my point of view, more than those that prosper, get frustrated and withdraw from churches when they notice the fallacy by which they were deceived.
A Gospel that does not firstly and primarily deals with the necessities of the soul, with the understanding of a world full of adversities, like the one we live in, generates people without existential reflection (they are not able to understand life), without interpretative perception of what they are being taught to believe in. This kind of gospel has created people who only applaud, and when they do not, there comes to their minds a false perception that they are omitting something and consequently they will miss God’s blessing (especially the material blessing). This behavior can be explained as being the result of the conditioning produced by lack of reflection, under God’s Word light, on what we hear and read.
Concerning the doctrine of prosperity, still, there are those who argue: Yeah, really the doctrine of prosperity is false, but we can not deny that the Bible speaks about prosperity; we cannot be against prosperity.
This is true, it would be nonsense to be against the prosperity of those who love God, it would be against God, because Jesus himself made clear that those who are of God can prosper, but it would happen as consequence of their living the kingdom of God as their priority, what I have already said before. Nevertheless, we have to notice that in the discourse that I don’t approve the doctrine of prosperity but I understand that prosperity exists is that the danger abides. This discourse tends to strengthen alienation, tends to avoid questions about what we see and hear in the church, and it makes prosperity doctrine to become more present in our meetings than we think. What started with some drops some years ago, today passed from drizzle to rain. We can say that we are not followers of such doctrine, but several practices of it have been part of our worship meetings nowadays; perhaps, in some cases, due to fear of erring and going against “what comes from God”.
José Martins
To be continued ...
Abraham, Job, Joseph, Ester, David and Salomon are the most used characters in the apology that in the Bible there is a secret, a scheme to achieve materially what we want, just because they succeeded well.
Abraham didn’t have anything and got everything, Job always had, Joseph came out of the inner country and was lifted up to the position of second Pharaoh, Ester became a queen out of nothing, David didn’t have anything e became rich, Salomon inherited his father’s riches and made them gigantic.
All of these were well successful people who demonstrated, without doubt, and I don’t disagree with this, that God brings prosperity, because He is the almighty God and everything belongs to him.
The preachers of prosperity have forgot to look at the life of Noah, a man whose material power is not mentioned in the Bible; they have forgot to look at Moses who was and had much but left all behind in behalf of God, they have forgot Samuel who never had too much, they have forgot Elijah, what was Elijah’s treasure? They have forgot Daniel who hadn’t anything, started to have, and again he didn’t have anything, they have forgot Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many other prophets that had little. They have forgot to look at the final part of the passage of the heroes of faith mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews, 11.36-38, that says:
Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
What a contradiction these verses present in relation to what is seen today, a huge emphasis on riches, the best houses, the best cars, the best jobs, the best this and that, and too lithe emphasis on the best of the soul, of the heart, of the truth, of justice for God and for those who are around us, believers or not.
As I said before, this is a kind of gospel (not the GOSPEL) that has done that a great number of people, in my point of view, more than those that prosper, get frustrated and withdraw from churches when they notice the fallacy by which they were deceived.
A Gospel that does not firstly and primarily deals with the necessities of the soul, with the understanding of a world full of adversities, like the one we live in, generates people without existential reflection (they are not able to understand life), without interpretative perception of what they are being taught to believe in. This kind of gospel has created people who only applaud, and when they do not, there comes to their minds a false perception that they are omitting something and consequently they will miss God’s blessing (especially the material blessing). This behavior can be explained as being the result of the conditioning produced by lack of reflection, under God’s Word light, on what we hear and read.
Concerning the doctrine of prosperity, still, there are those who argue: Yeah, really the doctrine of prosperity is false, but we can not deny that the Bible speaks about prosperity; we cannot be against prosperity.
This is true, it would be nonsense to be against the prosperity of those who love God, it would be against God, because Jesus himself made clear that those who are of God can prosper, but it would happen as consequence of their living the kingdom of God as their priority, what I have already said before. Nevertheless, we have to notice that in the discourse that I don’t approve the doctrine of prosperity but I understand that prosperity exists is that the danger abides. This discourse tends to strengthen alienation, tends to avoid questions about what we see and hear in the church, and it makes prosperity doctrine to become more present in our meetings than we think. What started with some drops some years ago, today passed from drizzle to rain. We can say that we are not followers of such doctrine, but several practices of it have been part of our worship meetings nowadays; perhaps, in some cases, due to fear of erring and going against “what comes from God”.
José Martins
To be continued ...
Saturday, June 30, 2007
HE TAKES CARE Part II
Today the gospel became for many Christians a channel for success only, success measured mainly by palpable prosperity.
The gospel most seen today, it is a gospel that absorbed the materialist trend, it is the competitive proposal of Christians being the best in everything, a thought that comes from positivist philosophy, from market theories (who is the best is the one that leads and possesses more). The motto is to be the head and not the tail. Get out of my way because I’m passing. If you don’t take care I’ll take your position, I’ll take your status, everything, I’ll absorb you – Is this not the way things happen in commercial markets, the wealthy swallowing up those who do not have how to compete?
Is this not the message that several preachers of the gospel are preaching in the house people come in to try to find rest for their souls and where this kind of thought and attitude should be deconstructed, aiming that people, after hearing the word of the gospel, could leave the place more humanized, sympathetic, taking with them something different than the way they live in the individualist battle in which they are involved everyday?
In the proposal of possessions, God became the great source of blessings to swollen egos, stimulated by preachers who merchandize the divine blessings with personal profitable goals. God is source of blessings, but I do not believe that He is if what we have and are going to have is not fruit of the teaching of Jesus: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Mathew 6.33).
We don’t need get upset about showing to anybody that what we have is the proof of our faith, is the materialization of our faith. In fact we don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
seeking first the kingdom of God became a message of “non-aggressive”, “weak” Christians, “believers without guts”, uncertainty of God’s promises; the motto is to determine, to claim one’s rights, corner God on His promises because “He cannot deny Himself”.
There are people who want to demonstrate their faith, that they are of God through their properties. How many of them have become frustrated when they did not get what they planed materially, when they did not achieve what was said to them they would achieve if they believe.
They got frustrated because what they confessed was not faith for eternal life, but for a present full of material things. They got frustrated because, perhaps, what they lived, they lived putting their trust in palpable things and not in the gospel that sees the future (but that also does not despise the present, just because he takes care of us as He does with the birds). They got frustrated because they believed in a gospel that does not reflect the dimension of Jesus’ work on the Calvary: God coming to us and setting us free of our incapacity of seeing ourselves, of our incapacity of understanding ourselves, who we were, are, and where we are going to, and why we exist.
Without Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, we would not have how to see this. Thus, now, we depend on Him and now we go to Him to have what we need, just because He has taken care of us.
They got frustrated because they believed in decontextualized triumphalist messages as the ones based on the words of Paul the apostle, for instance: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4.13).
The context of this verse is Paul knowing how to be in abundance and in necessity, full and hungry, encouraged and discouraged. It is not a context of invincibility, get out demon because I am a son of the King. Even the sons and daughters of the king were also called to suffer, to possess and do not possess, as He lived because they love Him, because they know that He gave them back life again, because they know that they were and are important to him in such a way that He wants them beside Him forever, because they were created in His image and resemblance, they are the crown of His creation, are His expression in their thinking, acting, having history, in their dreams, loving, planning, living, in their freedom to choose and judge.
The properties that we have and are going to have yet are consequence and not goals for the Christian that tries to live according to the example Jesus showed to His disciples.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Mathew 6.30)
Still in the text below:
1 Timothy 6.10-12
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many.
The apostle is speaking that some in their strong interest of making money withdrew from faith. Love of money comes true in several ways and one of them is through strong emphasis on getting it , emphasis that creates in the mind of those influenced by the money message a mist that leads them astray of Christ’s compassion, that change them into indifferent, arrogant people, almost all that Jesus did not wish for those who were and are called by his name.
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You (Psalm 73:25).
To be continued ...
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
The gospel most seen today, it is a gospel that absorbed the materialist trend, it is the competitive proposal of Christians being the best in everything, a thought that comes from positivist philosophy, from market theories (who is the best is the one that leads and possesses more). The motto is to be the head and not the tail. Get out of my way because I’m passing. If you don’t take care I’ll take your position, I’ll take your status, everything, I’ll absorb you – Is this not the way things happen in commercial markets, the wealthy swallowing up those who do not have how to compete?
Is this not the message that several preachers of the gospel are preaching in the house people come in to try to find rest for their souls and where this kind of thought and attitude should be deconstructed, aiming that people, after hearing the word of the gospel, could leave the place more humanized, sympathetic, taking with them something different than the way they live in the individualist battle in which they are involved everyday?
In the proposal of possessions, God became the great source of blessings to swollen egos, stimulated by preachers who merchandize the divine blessings with personal profitable goals. God is source of blessings, but I do not believe that He is if what we have and are going to have is not fruit of the teaching of Jesus: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Mathew 6.33).
We don’t need get upset about showing to anybody that what we have is the proof of our faith, is the materialization of our faith. In fact we don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
seeking first the kingdom of God became a message of “non-aggressive”, “weak” Christians, “believers without guts”, uncertainty of God’s promises; the motto is to determine, to claim one’s rights, corner God on His promises because “He cannot deny Himself”.
There are people who want to demonstrate their faith, that they are of God through their properties. How many of them have become frustrated when they did not get what they planed materially, when they did not achieve what was said to them they would achieve if they believe.
They got frustrated because what they confessed was not faith for eternal life, but for a present full of material things. They got frustrated because, perhaps, what they lived, they lived putting their trust in palpable things and not in the gospel that sees the future (but that also does not despise the present, just because he takes care of us as He does with the birds). They got frustrated because they believed in a gospel that does not reflect the dimension of Jesus’ work on the Calvary: God coming to us and setting us free of our incapacity of seeing ourselves, of our incapacity of understanding ourselves, who we were, are, and where we are going to, and why we exist.
Without Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, we would not have how to see this. Thus, now, we depend on Him and now we go to Him to have what we need, just because He has taken care of us.
They got frustrated because they believed in decontextualized triumphalist messages as the ones based on the words of Paul the apostle, for instance: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4.13).
The context of this verse is Paul knowing how to be in abundance and in necessity, full and hungry, encouraged and discouraged. It is not a context of invincibility, get out demon because I am a son of the King. Even the sons and daughters of the king were also called to suffer, to possess and do not possess, as He lived because they love Him, because they know that He gave them back life again, because they know that they were and are important to him in such a way that He wants them beside Him forever, because they were created in His image and resemblance, they are the crown of His creation, are His expression in their thinking, acting, having history, in their dreams, loving, planning, living, in their freedom to choose and judge.
The properties that we have and are going to have yet are consequence and not goals for the Christian that tries to live according to the example Jesus showed to His disciples.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Mathew 6.30)
Still in the text below:
1 Timothy 6.10-12
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many.
The apostle is speaking that some in their strong interest of making money withdrew from faith. Love of money comes true in several ways and one of them is through strong emphasis on getting it , emphasis that creates in the mind of those influenced by the money message a mist that leads them astray of Christ’s compassion, that change them into indifferent, arrogant people, almost all that Jesus did not wish for those who were and are called by his name.
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You (Psalm 73:25).
To be continued ...
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
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