perhaps i’m overreacting. i mean, it’s not like i’m suffering personally. perhaps it shouldn’t matter to me at all. but i am concerned.
one of the reasons i started writing in this space every day several times a week when it is convenient for me, was my knee-jerk response to prevalence of the “your best life now” message (hence, the title). and its not that i’m advocating a life of misery and deprivation for all of christendom. i’m simply raising questions about our (the church) obsession with success and comfort and happiness.
today was my day off and i spent a little time surfing the web. i happened across (read: “facebook”) a couple of young pastors who grew up in my youth group. each of them is leading a thriving fellowship with more than a thousand in attendance each weekend. when i scrolled through their recent sermon series, however, there seemed (to me, at least) to be a preponderance of “your best life now” messages (i.e.: how to have a great family, how to overcome anxiety, how to raise great kids, etc.). i am not saying that those things are not important, or that those subject should not be dealt with in the church. they are and they should. i am saying, however, that i’m not seeing a lot of sermon series on “participating in the sufferings of christ” and “denying self” and “joyful in persecution.”
like i said, i’m probably overreacting.
at the fellowship i lead, we are currently walking through the book of 1 corinthians and yesterday we started chapter 15. in this passage, paul makes a provocative statement:
If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. (1 Corinthians 15:19 – The Message)
paul seems to be saying that it’s pretty ludicrous to make this life our hope. yet, it seems to me that many christians are preoccupied with (and many preachers are preaching about) having a great life on this earth. but didn’t we become part of the kingdom to escape the emptiness and futility of this life?
“but jesus loves us,” you might say. “doesn’t he want us to have a great life here on earth?” he sacrificed his life to give us the kingdom. isn’t the kingdom enough for us? why do we yearn for things pagans run after? and what exactly did jesus mean when he said:
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9:24)
am i suggesting that we are victims of a massive satanic conspiracy? i’m not that smart. but i’m pretty sure our eternal spiritual enemy is pleased when we focus on success in this life rather than success in the life to come.
according to scripture, your best life (and mine) is later.
Filed under: abandonment, christianity, church, religion, spiritual
I agree wholeheartedly. I often wonder if the people who go to these “bless me” churches, as I call them, have any knowledge of any doctrine whatsoever. I wonder if they realize that Christ Himself said that in this world we would have trials and tribulations. Maybe they aren’t experiencing the trials and tribulations because they aren’t dangerous in the eyes of the enemy. Satan doesn’t have to put snares in their paths because he knows that they aren’t going to do much to expand the Kingdom of God because they aren’t willing to pay the price. They are comfortable, and Kingdom work is all too often uncomfortable.
Great post and comment. This world is nothing but hard.
Randy, reflecting on your asking the question of what Jesus meant in what he said in Luke 9:24.
Perhaps Jesus was saying by trying to save your present way of life (attitudes, thought-forms) you would lose your opportunity for a better life, but by losing that way of life and following his way of life you could gain or save the opportunity for a very good life.
By changing our attitudes and thoughts (thinking of Matthew 5; the Beatitudes) and following his teaching on how to live our lives we can live our best life now.
As usual, your posts move me to reflection or possibly contemplation on the inner life of a human. I do believe Jesus’ message and ministry was speaking constantly to changing our inner life which would change how we live our outer life or reality. If we can make that inner change we really don’t have to say anything to anybody, it is reflected in all we do and people are attracted to that way of life they see and want to experience it themselves.
You wrote, ” I happened across … a couple of young pastors who grew up in my youth group. Each of them is leading a thriving fellowship with more than a thousand in attendance each weekend. When I scrolled through their recent sermon series, however, there seemed … to be a preponderance of “your best life now” messages …”
Chicken-and-egg question: Which came first? Are Best Life Now messages what it takes to attract “more than a thousand” each weekend, or once a pastor hits those numbers, do they feel they need to preach this type of message to avoid losing relevance, losing the crowd, or both?
I guess to answer that we’d need to know what they were preaching when they were only getting fifty, or two hundred and fifty people.
[...] Randy Morgan can’t help notice that among some pastors he knows personally whose churches have hit the 1,000+ mark in attendance, their messages have somewhat of a recurring theme. [...]