Oh, what a circus, Oh what a show!
Because the circus mass is such an improvement!
From the above thread:
And from another site:
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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.
Oh, what a circus, Oh what a show!
Because the circus mass is such an improvement!
From the above thread:
And from another site:
Wow.
Excuses, excuses.....
Can you ever admit that someone else is correct?
You are “done here,” you say, yet you still have not answered my simple question.
DO YOU BELIEVE WHAT JESUS SAID, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” or NOT? Do you believe that Jesus spoke The Truth, The Ultimate Truth no matter what circumstance you find yourself in, i.e., you follow osteen and his happy “teachings?”
**So do you believe you were saved after asking Jesus to be your savior or not until you were baptized?**
According to the Calvinist message, I believed on the Lord as my savior.
But, always wondered why Acts was almost always avoided in bible studies and sermons. When I was hungry for more, at the age of 28, I was sent a witness, to the born again experience prophesied by the Lord, and shown several times in Acts.
It was then I knew I was saved, when I obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to me. (see Rms 6:17)
“Being THEN made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness”. Rms 6:18
**You can argue with Peter and Paul all you want, but it is not water that gives us life:**
I never said one time that water gives life. Water baptism in the name of Jesus is burial with him, We are to rise from that burial, by the ‘glory of the Father’ (the Holy Ghost.
Sir, you certainly use a LOT of private interpretation.
The flood washed away a type of sin; the evil in the world. And the flood BURIED it.
**Water baptism saves you out of the wicked world we live in and show we are a people set apart. It follows new life, but does not give it.**
FOLLOWS new life? So you’re saying that, symbolically, the Israelites had new life without crossing the Red Sea, but passed through the sea to be a people set apart.
The Red Sea ‘washed away’ a type of sin (the life in Egypt), burying it in a watery grave. The children of Israel passed through it, else they would have perished at the hands of the Egyptians. They arose from that ‘passing through the sea’ experience to life in the Spirit (the cloud that went before them).
**There is a reason why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is so important:**
You’re preaching to the choir. I believe in the Holy Ghost infilling making us one spiritually with Christ, and giving us power to overcome the world, AND having the power of the resurrection by that Spirit.
I’ve never said that water baptism is life. It is being buried with Christ.
Whether you realize it or not, you seem to interpret Acts 2:38 this way:
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you with the Holy Ghost in the name of Jesus Christ and ye shall receive remission of sins”.
That’s not what it says in my Bible. The obedience of repentance, and being baptized in the name of Jesus (buried with him) brings remission of sins (that’s when His blood is applied to you individually, bringing remission of sins). Believe it!
What I believe is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
You owe answers to support your accusation and attacks on Joel but are unable to do it (copying and pasting a Q&A session doesn’t cut it).
I’m done playing ring around the rosy with you.
Bye.
Another thing about this comment of yours:
**Water baptism saves you out of the wicked world we live in and show we are a people set apart. It follows new life, but does not give it.**
Noah did not have a new life until he was out of the water.
The life on the ark was not sustainable. Eventually the feed would run out, and the animals would perish, and then also Noah and family. New life follows death and burial.
You should consider running for an office somewhere.
You didn’t answer my question. I didn’t ask when you “knew” you were saved. Or are you saying that you were not actually saved until you were baptized?
“Moses would beg to differ with you.”
Except we’re no longer subject to Mosaic law:
Galatians 2:16 -
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
Galations 3:13- Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Galations 3:14 - That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
“FOLLOWS new life? So you’re saying that, symbolically, the Israelites had new life without crossing the Red Sea, but passed through the sea to be a people set apart.”
Yes - God had already claimed them as His own, and had already decided to bring them out of Egypt. They were already saved by God, and already His Chosen People. They were not accepted by God based on crossing the Red Sea, but crossed the Red Sea because God had already accepted them!
“Whether you realize it or not, you seem to interpret Acts 2:38 this way:
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you with the Holy Ghost in the name of Jesus Christ and ye shall receive remission of sins”.”
Peter was not teaching a systematic theology class, thank God! What he said, after the people repented, is summarized in three sentences:
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
The emphasis was on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit - after all, that is what drew the men to listen to Peter to begin with! Acts Chapter 2 is about what happened when the Apostles received the Holy Spirit!
Peter undoubtedly also insisted on water baptism for the new converts, all of whom were Jews who fully understood the concept - unlike today, when almost no one in the unsaved populace knows what it is or why it might be done.
Peter did not need to explain to the listening Jews what water baptism meant because they already knew. It was already long accepted by the Jews as a symbol of the inner change that had already taken place - after all, no adult is baptized against his will. No Jew believed the water gave life, or that it was anything other than an outward symbol of the inner reality.
As for “the remission of sins”, the Greek can by interpreted two valid ways - baptized to gain forgiveness, or baptized in recognition of forgiveness. Given that the audience was Jewish, and that they ALL understood before Peter said a word that water baptism RECOGNIZED the change, it is pretty simple to know how they interpreted Peter, and indeed what Peter meant.
To be made part of the body of Christ requires baptism of the Holy Spirit - the Baptism that Jesus does. That is directly and explicitly taught: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”
“Noah did not have a new life until he was out of the water.”
Noah was on the Ark. Why? Because God had already accepted him. He was right with God before the Ark was built, since he built it in response to God’s command. Noah was accepted by God long before the Flood!
And you should seriously consider stopping your unjust and wrongful attack on Joel Osteen. I pray that you will stop, in Jesus name. Amen.
Bye.
**Noah was accepted by God long before the Flood!**
I guess he didn’t need to BUILD the ark after all since he was saved before the flood.
“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, PREPARED an ark to the SAVING of his house.....”. Heb. 11:7
Since we’re in Hebrews:
“By faith Abraham, when he was called to GO OUT into a place.......OBEYED..” 11:8
“I guess he didn’t need to BUILD the ark after all since he was saved before the flood.”
Noah was approved by God prior to the Flood. He was already right with God:
“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.”
That sure sound like approval to me, before the Flood and before the Ark was built.
So what did the Flood do? Hmmmm? In what sense did the Flood ‘save’ Noah?
Well, it separated him from the evil generation he was in - which is what water baptism does for us. Sanctification, not justification. Important, but it does not make us right with God. God does that prior to water baptism.
**Yes - God had already claimed them as His own, and had already decided to bring them out of Egypt. They were already saved by God, and already His Chosen People. They were not accepted by God based on crossing the Red Sea, but crossed the Red Sea because God had already accepted them!**
Moses was the voice of God to the Israelites. Ex. 4:12,15.
They “were under the cloud, and passed through the sea. And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”. 1Cor. 10:1,2
That’s when “Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still and SEE the SALVATION of the Lord, which he will SHEW to you TO DAY: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen TO DAY, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” Ex. 14:13
**Peter was not teaching a systematic theology class,**
Yes he was!!
**What he said, after the people repented, is summarized in three sentences:**
...after the people repented? The word says they were pricked in their hearts. That’s conviction, not repentance. That’s why Peter told them they had to repent.
You seem to do a lot ‘cart before the horse’ theology. And go into long interpretations of baptism, and STILL you won’t address ‘being buried with him’. That’s not Holy Ghost baptism. Because Holy Ghost baptism is not death and burial, but life eternal.
**No Jew believed the water gave life,**
That’s good, because I haven’t said it does either. Remission of sins is not Holy Ghost baptism. They are not the same thing; just like the ‘cloud’ and the ‘sea’ were not the same thing. But the Iraelites had to experience them both to ‘see the salvation of the Lord’.
At least, He should be, right?
**So what did the Flood do? Hmmmm? In what sense did the Flood ‘save’ Noah? Well, it separated him from the evil generation he was in - which is what water baptism does for us.**
Did you even read this?
“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, PREPARED an ark to the SAVING of his house.....”. Heb. 11:7
Noah was WARNED (grace) of God. He HAD to DO something to be saved. The warning, and instructions for escaping God’s wrath were to be followed..to the letter.
You seem to believe in predestination. Are you predestined to not be buried with Him in likeness of his death?
**Galatians 2:16 -**
The saints at Galatia were already born again. But, unfortunately were still performing some of the ‘works of the Law’. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins is NOT a work of the Law. God remits the sins, not man.
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