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Posts Tagged ‘Joel Osteen’

This is Hell

Posted in Bible, Christianity, discipleship, Jesus, tagged , , , , , , on August 11, 2012| 6 Comments »

These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power…2 Thessalonians 1:9

Hell

Before we go any further, Christians and non-Christians alike must accept one basic truth: Hell is a real place. This needs to be shared because there are false teachers among us; those who claim they are Christians, but teach that Hell is not real.

Who are these guys?

Well sadly, the list is long, but a few of the more popular heretics on the scene today are: Rob Bell (who also preaches everyone who wants to go to Heaven, goes to Heaven), Brian McLaren (who does not believe making disciples equals making adherents to the Christian religion), and Joel Osteen (who rarely mentions Hell, so as to not offend anyone).

Needless to say, these folks, and many like them, should be avoided. Are they even Christians? Only God knows, but whatever their Spirit condition, what pours out of their mouths is proof-positive they should not be teachers of God’s word. Even a baby-Christian can figure out that if Hell isn’t real, than Christ Jesus died for naught.

What the Bible Declares

While it is debatable if God spoke more about Hell than Heaven, the reality is that the place of everlasting damnation is spoken about a whole lot in the Bible. I won’t list them all, but check out some of the descriptors God uses:

As horrible as we can envision Hell to be, these things are not the worst of it. What makes Hell truly horrific and terrifying is that God is not there. Consider for a moment Christ’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. On the evening before His arrest, humiliation, torture, and murder, Jesus, being in agony the likes of which we have never known, sweat great drops of blood.

Why?

Was Jesus afraid of being humiliated, tortured, and murdered?

While I don’t believe He was looking forward to any of those things, I don’t think they were the primary source of His dread and agony. I believe the agonizing horror Jesus faced was being completely separated from His Father, even though it was only going to be for a relatively short period of time. Jesus knew that even one second apart from the Father was too much to bear. This is why the God-Man sweat droplets of blood.

That should give every person pause. Can we imagine the terror of  momentary separation from God, let alone an eternity?

A while back I wrote a piece called ‘We Have No Idea,’ where I mulled over this passage of scripture:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. Psalm 139:17-18

I was determined to calculate (as best I could), how many times God thinks about us individually (you can read that piece in its entirety via the link). I came to the conclusion that God thinks about each of us approximately three hundred million times per second (a number I believe to be very conservative by the way).

If this is true (and I believe it is), then we must give thought to what God could possibly be thinking about so frequently? Is He merely recounting 3oo,000,000 times a second how much He loves us? Maybe, but I contend that God is demonstrating His love for us, over and over, in practical hands-on ways.

God, by means of each divine thought, is orchestrating every minuscule thing that’s going on inside our body, from the knitting together of damaged cells, to the beat of our hearts, to the digestion of our food, to the healing of that pimple on the tip of our nose. On a grander scale, He’s producing the oxygen we need to breathe, while spinning the planet on its axis, while providing the sun and the rain, and maintaining gravity so we don’t all float away. Everything that needs to be done to keep Dave Wells (and you) going, God is doing in a loving, practical way.

Oh, and by the way, He’s doing it for the non-believers too. What they fail to grasp is that when they die, He will do nothing for them ever again.

This is Hell. 

If the non-believer could experience God’s absence in this way for just five seconds, they would know the terror Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. Can you imagine Godless-ness for eternity? God paints the picture, the question that remains is, do we see it and do we believe it?

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” Psalm 14:1

  1. What do these passages say about God?
  2. What do hey say about us?
  3. What is our recourse?
These articles may or may not be related. As you read them, see if they line up with what God says in His Word the Bible.

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Professors of Foolishness

Posted in Bible, Bible Prophecy, evangelism, faith, investment, Jesus, religion, sanctification, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2011| 5 Comments »

(You) should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart… Ephesians 4:17-18

Futility of the mind – do you remember what that was like? Before we knew Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior there was not much of a point to our lives. We had no purpose, no focus, no direction, and those deceitful lusts that had promised us so much satisfaction, instead brought misery and heartache. Oh, we knew about God, but we were to busy with ourselves. We later discovered that the result of our folly was recorded accurately in the Book of Romans.

“Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…” Romans 1:21

Professors of Foolishness

We seem to have this tendency in our country to honor our fools, regardless if we have turned aside from our foolish ways or not. We hoist them up, applaud their status, and in many instances, without thinking, assimilate their faulty values. To illustrate the point, let us consider for a moment the top-ten professors (arguably) of this age:

Lady Gaga: “It’s more self-worship, I think…I’m teaching people to worship themselves…I felt, and I still feel, that I was sent to this planet from my planet, Planet Goat, to create a ruckus.”

Pastor Joel Osteen: (Answering the question, ‘Is a Mormon a true Christian?’) “Well, in my mind they are…I’m not the one to judge the little details of it.”

Kathy Griffin: “Now, a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus…Jesus, this award is my God now!”

Pastor Benny Hinn: “I’m a super being. Say it! Say it! Who’s a super being? ‘I walk in the realm of the supernatural.’ Say it!…You want to prosper? Money will be falling on you from left, right and centre. God will begin to prosper you, for money always follows righteousness…Say after me, ‘everything I ever want is in me already.’ “

President Obama: “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation…I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

Pastor Rob Bell: [The Bible is a] “Human product…rather than the product of divine fiat (authoritative decree)…The writers of the Bible had agendas.”

Oprah Winfrey: “If you’re not comfortable with the word God, it doesn’t matter…One of the mistakes that human beings make is believing that there is only one way to live…there are many paths to what you call God…There couldn’t possibly be just one way.”

Paris Hilton: “Jesus loves me, Biff. He really loves me. Isn’t that neat? And not just because I’m rich and I’m hot. He would love me even if I wasn’t rich and hot, thought I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t want to be rich or hot. Or why god would want to love people who aren’t rich or hot.”

Pastor Creflo Dollar: “And then God produced more gods with flesh and then gods with flesh produced more gods with flesh. And then gods with flesh produced more gods with flesh until THE God of gods with flesh showed up one day with flesh and dwelt among the other gods with flesh to demonstrate to the other gods with flesh how to have authority over the flesh! So follow Him! Follow Him! This is our history I’m telling you about! This is the history the religious church wants to hide away from you so you don’t know who you really are!”

Bill Maher: “If I thought the Lord was speaking to me I’d check myself into Bellevue, and I think you should too…The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs.

~ ~ ~

I am sure you know that this is just the tip of the heretical ice berg and that the Biblical remedy to this nonsense is abstinence; a total rejection of both the fool and the rubbish he or she spews. We must begin to disclaim those who deny Jesus Christ or pervert His name ~ It would help us to remember that they are our mission field, we are not theirs.

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:6-8

Questions:

  1. Are you trying to live in two worlds?
  2. What are the dangers of entertaining opposed philosophies?
  3. Are you submitted to Jesus and His teachings?

Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God… Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Matthew 5:8 + Psalm 51:10

~ ~ ~

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Your Christ Life Now

Posted in Bible, church, faith, health, investment, Jesus, love, sanctification, tagged , , , , , , on October 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:38

Has Joel Osteen has missed the mark?  You can decide for yourself.  Here are some quotes from his highly successful book, ‘Your Best Life Now.’

“Someday, I’ll earn more money, and I won’t have to worry about how to pay the bills.”

“God wants to increase you financially…”  

“Even if you come from an extremely successful family, God still wants you to go further.”

“Get rid of that small-minded thinking and start thinking as God thinks. Think big. Think increase. Think abundance. Think more than enough.”

“Many people settle for too little . . . ‘I’ve gone as far in my career as I can go. I’ve hit the peak. I’ll never make any more money than I’m making right now.’ “

Anyone familiar with the teachings of Jesus Christ perceives immediately that these (teachings) are not biblically sound. An abundant life in Christ has never been about personal gain, but remembering  that  prosperity of any kind is from Him and for Him. It’s not about getting more before you die, but giving more so others might live — to His glory!

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? Luke 9:23-25

I once heard a story about a man who, while hiking in the wilderness had become caught in a blizzard. He walked for hours in the blinding snow and was soaked through, frost-bitten, and exhausted. The compulsion to collapse in the snow and sleep unto death was overwhelming and so to his knees he fell.

In a second’s time, he tipped forward from his knees to his elbows, hoping to go fetal, but instead he felt a mass beneath the snow. He had literally stumbled upon another person; a person who he would discover was unconscious, but alive.

He lifted the man across his shoulders and began walking. In less than an hours time he came upon a cabin. This home was occupied, there was a fire burning, and both men were saved.

In this account, a proper definition of an abundant life in Christ emerges.  This man, the very picture of an empty vessel, was restored after he had given up his personal quest and made himself available to a greater purpose, the saving of another man’s life.  The story’s only omission — who got the accolades as they warmed themselves before the fire?

Blessed For a Reason

Isn’t the Lord saying to us, “Look! There are bodies all around. I’ve given you the means to pick one (or more) up and begin walking.”

The choice has always been ours. In our salvation we can hoard our blessings or even curl up and wait to die if we want, but there is a wiser option: living abundantly in gratitude, love, and obedient service in the precious name of the One who redeemed us.

Take a Test:

  1. Silently consider your testimony.
  2. Are the God-parts recent or ancient history?
  3. Overall, who is the benefactor of the God-parts?
  4. Is there consistency in your walk of faith?
  5. Do you hoard?
  6. Is your testimony in need of an update?
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