I have had it on my mind for a long time now, this topic of prosperity: what the world sees it as, and what the Bible actually teaches. I can’t help but find a discorrelation between the two. God’s teaching tends to go against the grain of the world’s idea of what true success and prosperity is. So why would God be suggesting we need to be more and more physically prosperous–rich if you will?
In the Gospels, you don’t see such a teaching, but rather a teaching against it where we are actually warned against loving money too much and having too masters. We are told the rich will have a rough time getting to heaven (and compared to the rest of the world, North America is incredibly rich, so stop kidding yourself!). So why then would God want us to be preaching that He wants us to be rich?
Rich in Spirit and in Truth, but physically? Monetarily? Socially? If Christ is the ultimate example of how we are to live on this earth, why didn’t he have 24″ spinners on his donkey as He rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passion week.
Something is not right here. Read Revelation 18. It talks about the rich city of Babylon, and how within an hour it was completely put to ruin. Within an hour. The prosperity the world teaches is the kind that can be taken from us in an hour, truly within a second.
Maybe I’ll have more thoughts later. peace.