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Friday, May 1, 2009
So I know, I like to make fun of Joel Osteen. Yes, he's got horrible theology and sometimes he just outrightly makes me laugh out loud at the things he says. He's not a perfect man, and neither are we, so we shuld pray for him. I was just noticing his book titles and I can already see the progress. His first book was titled, "Your Best Life Now" and his second book is title, "Become a Better You." How can you become better if you already were the best? I see a downsizing in his view of self in relation to God. The following are just optimistic guesses on how he could progress on this view of God and also on his future book titles.
His first book title: "Your Best Life Now: 7 steps to living at your full potential"
His second book title: "Become a Better you: 7 keys to improving your life every day"
Suggested third book title: "You can do OK: 7 goals to stay exactly where you're at"
Suggested fourth book: "You're not all that bad: 7 methods to not get worse"
Suggested fifth book: "Being positively bad: 7 models of good and bad people"
Suggested sixth book: "You are totally depraved: 7 ways I've been wrong about God"
Calculated failures are used to cause us to move beyond the early infant-enthusiasm to the place where we have to dig in and settle down upon the explicit truth of the Word. Before we can grow in any aspect of truth, we must be established in the knowledge of it.
In every area of our spiritual development, it is one thing to begin on a new plateau, but it is quite another thing "through faith and patience to inherit the promises" (Hebrews 6:12).
Osteen, on the other hand, is also a "waffler" in his "positive message." One who can't preach the true Gospel(Salvation from sin & its consequences through faith in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for thier sins). http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment/church_issues/joel_osteen.pdf
"'Unless a grain of wheat falls into the gound and dies,'" He said, "'it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain'" (John 12:24, NKJV). This process is the same one we must go through if we are to bear fruit as we are called to do.
Joined to the Lord, the grain of wheat awakens to the law of its being and yields itself to the Son of God for sowing in the earth. It cries to God to make it fruitful at any cost. The purpose of its life begins to dawn upon it. It sees that there is an element of selfishness in being absorbed in its "own" advancement and its "own" growth.
The Holy Spirit uses everything in His process of bringing us to the grain-of-wheat stage. The self-centered and carnal will receive the appropriate pressures--the physical body,the home,or the place of work...to cause us, in time, to become Christ-centered.