“So I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?”
God is our heavenly father. And if you look at the things he tells us to do, it IS because we will live better lives because of it. That is why your earthly parents tell you what to do (when they are being their best, anyway). Heck, that is what Proverbs is all about. It is the first “Self help” book. Don’t sleep around. Don’t hang out with thieves. Don’t spend your life in a drunken stupor. It’s all in there.
But I might have said something like, Obey God because you love and fear Him. But know this: God’s will is that you obey Him, and your life will be blessed for it. The man who obeys God is far more joyous than the man who does not obey God.
Well said.
Pretty much says it all.
the article sort of gets at some of that. your post is good; the article is also good. VO’s over-emphasis is too overdone...but the fact that they succeed in this regard shows that they are “on to something”. Not the fullness of truth, but a partial truth which needs flushing out....in any event, I thought this was a good article.
Well said indeed. One of life’s supreme ironies is that living a self-centered life where your goal is to satisfy your base desires for money or fame or sex leads to misery, but a life of “doing the right thing”, selflessness, service to others and humility leads to immense happiness. And that isn’t just a belief or something a preacher tells you, it comes from experience.
In one sense, its OK to talk about the joy and happiness that God wants for us. But when that moves into “pray and God will give you money,” it turns me off. I remember Osteen talking once about praying to find a parking space close to the mall entrance and saying it worked. That’s just plain silly.
The reward for civil righteousness is temporal. The reward for perfect righteousness is eternal and comes only through faith in the crucified and risen Christ. It is the latter with which the Church is predominantly concerned, for if one has the latter, he is well on the way to doing the former without gladly, without reserve, yet subject to persecution because the evil one and his followers are intent on neither temporal nor eternal righteousness.
I was taught that God’s will is that we find a saving faith in His Son so that we may be drawn to Him and not perish. Obedience follows.
To obey, we must first utilize the free will we have been given to make a conscious choice.
As for Mrs. Osteen, if it’s all about us, why bother to worship?
It’s the fearing God part that the Osteens obviously fail at. Miserably. They fear man and man’s approval more than they fear God and God’s approval. All you have to do is watch them squirm whenever the left’s unholy love for abortion and homosexuality is brought up.
Wasn’t this philosophy kinda put out there by Ayn Rand? She was not a believer in any sort of God, but didn’t hate religion because of, well, what Mrs. Osteen said here? Didn’t Ayn say we did ‘good’ things because it made us feel better, and when we feel better, we are better people in general?
Or am I way off?