How do we know that Joel Osteen is one of God's anointed ministers?
Posted on 09/02/2014 5:55:17 PM PDT by Gamecock
There was a time earlier on in my Christian life where I was quite the zealous little theology cop. I would blast Joel Osteen and the likes of him with their biblically deficient statements about God on my blog, twitter, Facebook — any outlet I could find. I thought it was my job to stand firm and "defend God's truth," calling out every bit of erroneous teaching I came across. I'm not that person anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that there is a place for exposing false teaching (and to be clear, I think that most of what I've heard of Joel Osteen's teaching is false). But I think it needs to be done out of a love for Christ and a desire for people to know Him in truth, not out of a egocentric desire to just be "right."
So, before I go into Victoria Osteen's comments, I want to say that my intention is not to put her on blast or to publicly declare her a blasphemous bimbo. There's enough of that on the Internet already. My intention is to discuss the cheap view of God that fuels the kind of comments she made in that video.
"I just want to encourage every one of us to realize that when we obey God, we're not doing it for God — I mean, that's one way to look at it — we're doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we're happy. That the thing that gives Him the greatest joy.
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?"
Here's the link to short video clip.
There is an element of truth to her statements about God desiring us to be happy and Him taking pleasure in our happiness. The Lord does not want His people be a mopey, despairing, steel-faced, jaw-clenched, stick-up-butt bunch of folks. Throughout the entirety of the Bible you see The Lord repeatedly commanding people to take delight in The Lord. David said that at the right hand of God are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11)! Jesus said that He came and spoke truth to us that His joy may be in us and that our joy may be made full (John 15:11). When Paul wrote letters to the early Church, he did so for their progress and joy in the faith (Philippians 1:25). The concept of joy and the command to pursue it plagues the bible. You can't read it without realizing that the one true God is a happy God that desires his people to be happy as well.
So it's true — overwhelmingly true — that God wants us to be happy. But, the problem is that people like Victoria take this truth and slant it, ever so subtly, away from the God-centered-happiness that the Bible prescribes and toward a me-centered-happiness that the Bible condemns. God's greatest pleasure is not in our happiness (although He does desire that), but in His own glory. He wants His glory to be the fuel that our joy-appetites feed on. He wants His presence to be the longing of our souls. God wants us to be happy in Him.
"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" – Pslam 42:1-2
We were designed to be joy hungry creatures that fervently feast upon the glory of God. We were intended to be people that draw fresh life, day after day, from all the ways that God graciously manifests Himself to us. We were created to be people that are full out, head over heels obsessed with God. We were to seek Him constantly, pray to Him without ceasing, meditate on Him endlessly and do everything we do to see and experience more of His glory. And we were to enjoy living our lives this way.
But let's all be honest with ourselves, we naturally hate the idea of living our lives this way. Because sin has deformed our hearts. Before the fall, man had a heart that was outwardly directed toward God, but when sin entered in, our hearts folded inwardly and gazed upon ourselves. From the moment Adam's teeth sunk into the fruit of self-autonomy, the heart of mankind has sought happiness in and through himself, other people and everything around him. Anywhere but in God.
And I'm not just talking about meth addicts or porn addicts or prostitutes or crooked businessmen. Lots of people seek happiness apart from God but throw His name all over it. Using God for His this-side-of-glory gifts (aka the American Dream) without any real love for Him or desire to know Him doesn't count as seeking happiness in God. He takes no pleasure in that. But this is what I fear is happening in an incredibly large number of American Churches. This is what I fear is happening in the Osteen Church, based on the many things I have heard both Joel and Victoria say over the years. I won't pronounce judgment on them before the time (1 Corinthians 4:5), but I will say with certainty that taking the immutable, unstoppable and infinitely holy God of the Bible and reducing Him down to a three-wish celestial butler who is only here to make us happy — without us really having to surrender to, worship, adore or enjoy Him — is absolute heresy. There is a massive difference between enjoying God for who He is and "enjoying God" for what temporary or material blessings He can give you.
But this heresy is the 'gospel' of today's western spirituality. We refuse to worship a God who is opposed in any way to how we wish to live our lives. "God" is just this generic divine being who is here to affirm and bless whatever we feel like He should. We get to decide what we feel like is right or worthy of our worship, and then we yank the Holy One down off His throne and demand Him to bow at our feet and bless us our god-forsaken pursuits of purpose and joy.
A great example of this is this emergence of the idea that someone can be a "gay Christian"; a person who claims to worship Jesus Christ but refuses to actually worship Him by surrendering all that they are — like their fallen sexual impulses — to His authority and Lordship. But this kind of mentality goes far and beyond the same-sex attracted population. You'll find it among the dishonest business owners hustling for financial success, the twenty-something guidos pining after that GTL life, the straight guys manipulating girl after girl while trying to build up their 'I got some of that' trophy case — you'll find all walks and kinds of people living for godless pursuits, but still want a lil-bit-a Jesus on Sundays.
The cheap 'gospel' of western spirituality says that the path to happiness is accepting and loving yourself as you are, and believing that God wants to affirm you in whatever way that you choose to live out your life. But the real truth, the biblical truth, is that true joy is found not in self-acceptance, but self-denial. Not the insane, pleasure less I'm-gonna-beat-myself-with-a-stick-every-time-I-have-a-bad-thought kind self-denial, but the denial of sinful, me-centered thrills and spills for the sake of experiencing a better, pure, God-centered joy.
The reality is that if we're seeking happiness outside of God Himself, we're short changing ourselves. We're being cheap happiness chasers — living our lives for fleeting, momentary pleasures that can't satisfy our God-given capacities for God-centered joy. The void in our souls where true, God-centered joy was made to dwell is far too deep and wide for anything or anyone in this world to fill it. We will never be satisfied living our lives for ourselves. You will not be able to find contentment. We will always thirst for more. We were made to live for so much more than ourselves.
The Bible points us to a life of obsession with the beauty and glory of God because it's only when we lose ourselves in Him that we will ever actually find ourselves and, in turn, grasp true joy. Coming to God through the reconciling work of Jesus and feasting, day after day, upon all that He is for us — that will satisfy our souls. That will quench our thirst.
The call of the true gospel is not to be all that we can be and throw a little Jesus on it — it's to be reconciled to God through the work of Jesus Christ and to enjoy Him forever! God is the most valuable being in the universe. He's not boring or stiff or tame. He's outrageously interesting and the greatness of all that He is can (and will) be chased after for eternity. The best that He can give us is Himself, and that's exactly what He does in the gospel. If we want true satisfaction and lasting joy, we will not find it in going to church to "worship God for us" or in "doing good for ourselves." We won't find it in deciding for ourselves who and what we are. We will only find it in and through the Person of Jesus Christ.
True joy is wrapped up in knowing and savoring the Person of God. It can be found nowhere else.
I don't write this as someone who's got it all figured out. I love Jesus and have tasted of His goodness, but I still struggle to go to Him when my soul is dry. I still tend to so easily bend toward seeking out comfort for my heart in the cheap pleasures and pursuits of the world. But my hope is that this incredibly patient and merciful Source of all true joy will keep breathing fresh waves of mercy over my heart, re-shaping and re-creating me to be increasingly inclined to find all that I need and desire in the greatness of who He is.
Perfect scripture references Alamo-Girl..Oh how I love His word!
His truth is available to all who seek it.....but one has to ‘want’ to know the truth.
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God.” Psalm 42:1
Praise be to God for nourishing our souls with His own words!
The proof is in the pudding.
He doesn’t preach God’s word.
Watch with discerning eyes and you will see that.
‘for’, ‘into’,.....ok...
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ ‘into’ the remission of sins...”.
Jesu said, “He that believeth (no comma) and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not”(isn’t gonna think that baptism is important)”shall be damned”.
And of course, there’s the command for baptism in Matt. 28:19, “..in the NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost..”. Those are titles, not THE NAME.
The Son said he came in his Father’s NAME, not his own. John 5:43
Hebrews 1:4 says that the Son received his name (Thou shalt call his name JESUS; Lk 1:31) by inheritance.
Jesus Christ said the Holy Ghost would be sent in his name. Jn 14:26.
Peter said that the name of Jesus is the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
The same Peter said: “..were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also SAVE us....”. 1Peter 3:20,21.
Ananias told Paul, “And now why tarriest thou? arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord”. Acts 22:16
My time is very limited, and I’ve only scratched the surface on water baptism, but even in those few references you should see the importance that the Lord and his apostles placed on it: That’s where his shed blood is applied to one’s soul;....when one is ‘buried WITH HIM in baptism’. Romans 6:4; Col. 2:12.
IOW, if you’re not baptized, you’re not saved, correct?
If so, then it’s not the blood of Jesus which saves you, it’s getting dunked because Jesus death wasn’t enough.
Do have the integrity to quote the entire verse in context. Quoting half a thought, sentence or verse to try to support a doctrine, is BAD hermenutics.
Here's what you were trying to quote in context.
The parts you quoted are in black, to show what you lifted out of Scripture to make it say what you want.
The bolded, underlined, shows that it is NOT water baptism that saves anyone.
1Peter 3:18-22 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Absolutely no way does that *believe not* mean doesn't think baptism is important.
That is assumption of the highest magnitude.
There's nothing in the reading of that verse that lends itself to that interpretation.
Act 1:5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
From your post."Jesu said, “He that believeth (no comma) and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not”(isn’t gonna think that baptism is important)”shall be damned”."
You inserted a phrase which is already condemned in scripture. Then you try to imply something you can't support. Tell me, did He mean water baptism or baptism of the Holy Spirit? Then there is Paul's answer to the jailor. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your house". Did Paul lie to him? Did Paul forget? What happened there?
>>The same Peter said: “..were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also SAVE us....”. 1Peter 3:20,21.<<
There you go again by leaving off part of the passage. Let's look at what it says actually saves.
1 Peter 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
See that? "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why would Catholics not want people to know that it's the death and ressurection of Jesus that saves? Satan also doesn't want people to believe it's the death and ressurection of Jesus that saves but that it's something man does. I'm thinking Catholics are in league with Satan on that.
>>Ananias told Paul, “And now why tarriest thou? arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord”. Acts 22:16<<
What did he say washed away the sins in that passage?
Acts 22:16 And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
The sins were forgiven when he called on the name of the Lord and believed as has always been the case as evidenced many places in scripture.
>>you should see the importance that the Lord and his apostles placed on it:<<
No one has said it was unimportant. It is not what saves.
Isn't it interesting that Catholics need to twist, corrupt, add to, or in some way change scripture to make their beliefs seem plausible?
How do we know that Joel Osteen is one of God's anointed ministers?
Confusing post. You ask about Joel with a picture of Benny Hinn accompanied by a quote.
Whether you agree that Joel is called and anointed of God, attacking and accusing a fellow Christian without reasonable and scriptural cause supported by at least a preponderance of evidence puts the accuser on the same side as Satan, the master accuser of the brethren.
Did you read the article?
Gamecock, you owe me answers before I answer your questions.
Sounds like I've just suffered an accusation made without reasonable and scriptural cause and unsupported by at least a preponderance of evidence. What do you think, Gamecock?
Why don’t you take Benny Hinn to task about his remarks about Osteen and the Larry King debacle?
Benny Hinn Confronts Joel Osteen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaD_dFXd4Jk
I said whoever accuses fellow Christians in this manner. I didn’t say you specifically. However, others on this thread have done just that.
I don't know. Why don't you ask the Lord? He's the one I'm endeavoring to follow.
I didn’t think so.
At least Hinn has the guts to call Osteen out on his cowardice.
You certainly don’t have any problem calling out FReepers when they do something you don’t like.
You need more encouragement lessons.
You’re not doing real well on the practical application part.
>> “At least Hinn has the guts to call Osteen out on his cowardice.” <<
The problem with Hinn is that his antics make it all about him much of the time.
At least he has and studies his Bible; I don’t think Osteen owns one.
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