We have to stop saturating the church with this lie …

The heresy of the “prosperity gospel” is saturating the church. It’s message is that your relationship with Jesus Christ is all about you and your extracting as much blessing as possible from a divine provider.

God does, indeed, bless His children, but the Apostle Paul describes His great lovingkindness toward us like this:

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ,” Ephesians 1:3.

Prosperity gospel false preachers teach God’s blessings are all about money and material possessions, but the Bible teaches a very different message.

In fact, if you never learn to find joy in your hard work being the source of blessing to OTHERS, you’ll never understand God’s design for blessings in your life.

That’s because while true that God sometimes just blesses us for our enjoyment, He often showers us with opportunities to find rich blessing in toil that blesses others, much like this story told by pastor Wade Hughes, Sr.:

An old lady spent much of her summer sitting and swinging in an old swing hanging on her front porch. Her husband had been dead several years and she had withdrawn from all but the closest of family. Her lonely time grew and grew.

One spring day, the old lady went to the garage and dug out an old roto-tiller from under a rusty tub that covered the engine. She had found a big bag of seeds that would sprout a vine bearing bright red flowers. The old lady loved bright red things. She made a decision to get out of the swing and grow beautiful flowers to enjoy.

With great excitement, she pulled hard on the starter rope, and with great effort she finally got the old roto-tiller running. There was a wall of concrete blocks between her and the neighbor’s driveway. The blocks were laid a block and a space, or a gap, then another block and a space all the way down the driveway to the garage.

With great effort the old lady plowed between the driveway and the wall. She blistered her hands, her back ached, but the jarring roto-tiller finished the task.

With feelings of accomplishment and pride, she got down on her knees and planted all the seeds in several rows along the wall. The rains came, the Lord blessed the little seeds and the sunshine warmed the ground. One day the lady saw the heads of the plant break forth, and the vines grew and grew until they completely covered the wall and the wall could no longer be seen. She would sit daily in the swing and watch the progress of the vine. This was great joy to the old lady.

Beautiful vines … but no flowers.

Zero.

Nothing!

Where were all the bright red flowers?

After much disappointment and great thought, the lady decided, “I planted those vines for flowers, bright red flowers, and there are none. I am going to cut those dumb empty vines down and burn them!”

She went down the driveway, into the garage, and retrieved a rusty old hoe, sharpened the edge and started chopping down the vines. About the third vine was chopped down and she grinned ear to ear. The neighbor, pulling into his drive way, skidded to a halt and jumped out of his car and ran over to her.

He said, “What on earth are you doing?! I know this is your property and that is your vine, and you can do as you choose. But why are you cutting down this vine?”

The old lady explained to the neighbor, “I planted this not for the vine but for the bright red flowers, and there are none. After all my sweat and blisters and watering, not one flower. I am cutting this down because there are no red flowers and that is why I planted them!”

Without one word the neighbor took the feeble old lady by the hand and led her to the other side of the wall. On his side of the fence, there were thousands of the brightest red flowers you ever saw, between every block were many of the brillant blossoms.

Scripture teaches us we are to become like Jesus, to follow Him, to walk in His footsteps. But His life was one that was poured out for others! To be a disciple of Christ isn’t to chase Jesus for blessings, but to take that which He has blessed us with to use to bless and serve others …

“The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed,” Proverbs 11:25.

“And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others … For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God,” 2 Corinthians 9:8, 10-11.

“But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required,” Luke 12:48.

The lies of the prosperity gospel don’t even make Christ central in our lives, they put ourselves at the center with Jesus ready to drown us in riches. But in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, He is pre-eminent over all and blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others.

Saturate your mind and heart with that truth, and it will change your life … to be more like Jesus!

Scotty