The other night
I had a dream that I was being forced to sit under the ramblings of a
prosperity “preacher”. As I sat and listened to this so-called preacher explain
how and why God blessed him with his millions I began to get infuriated. I got
so mad that I woke my self up. I literally sat upright from a dead sleep,
filled with anger because of what I was hearing.
It was about
that time that I realized the things I was hearing in my dream were actually
being said on the television in my room. My wife had stayed up later than me to
finish watching some show and she must have fell asleep with the television on.
Apparently 4am is primetime TV for all those who are looking to God like a
lottery ticket, because at 4am some huffing and puffing preacher comes on the
TV to tell you how to open the window of heaven in order to fill your wallet.
This guy (who is
preaching in front of many people who are literally in tears over what he’s
saying) begins to explain that God wants all Christians rich and that he is
going to pray for God to bring somebody into the life of all of his hearers who
would be in their life just to give them money. He explains that the only
reason this person will want to be around you is to bless you financially. He
then asked everybody to get out their wallets and open them up so he can pray
for their wallets to be filled. He goes on to say, “Even you at home; get out
your wallet. If you don’t have a wallet draw a picture of a wallet and I’ll
pray for it.”
There are so
many things wrong with this picture that I don’t have room enough to address
them all in one blog post but for now let me simply address this heretic’s view
on prayer. First off, think about yourself. How do you understand prayer? What
type of things do you pray for? Though many of us despise the so-called
prosperity gospel, far too many in the church pray very similar prayers.
Jesus said, “Pray
then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:9-13). Jesus
certainly tells us to pray for needs such as daily bread, but the idea behind
our asking for daily bread is that we will be so about the business of the
Kingdom that we won’t have time to focus on our daily bread. Prayer is directly
linked to the fulfillment of the coming of the Kingdom.
John Piper says
it like this, “Prayer is meant by God to be a wartime walkie-talkie, not a
domestic intercom...not for the enhancement of our comforts but for the
advancement of Christ's kingdom.” It seems to me Piper is saying something very
similar to Christ here. One of the main implications of what Jesus says and Piper
says is that Christians are to use prayer as a means to get the gospel of the
Kingdom out into the world in order that people from every tribe, tongue, and
nation would repent and believe and bow the knee to King Jesus.
Matthew 24:14
says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole
world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” This implies
that when the gospel reaches all those the Lord wishes it to Jesus will return
and the Kingdom will come in its fullness. In their book Faithmapping, Daniel Montgomery and Mike Cosper say, “The gospel of
the kingdom is the announcement that life with God, under the rule of God, is
made immediately available to us through Jesus, our King.” Jesus came to earth,
lived a perfect life, had the wrath of God that all sinners deserve poured out
upon himself while He hung on a cross, died the death that all sinners deserve,
and rose from the dead on the third day conquering sin, Satan, and death for
all those who will repent and believe in this message. That being the case, the
prayers of the church should be focused on getting this message out in order to
push back the darkness and fulfill the Great Commission. The last thing
Christians should be doing is holding an open wallet in front of some guy who
is promising them the world if they will merely send a check to his “ministry.”
Remember what
the Word says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is
through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced
themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10). “For what does it profit a man to
gain the whole world and forfeit his soul” (Mark 8:36)?
So please,
don’t fall for the nonsense these prosperity preachers are dishing out. They
are lies that deceive, distract, and disappoint. When you pray, pray with great
intention for the cause of the Kingdom. Get your eyes off of yourselves and
turn them to Christ. Jesus is better than a full wallet any day. And the thing
this world needs more than anything is something that money cannot buy anyway.
The greatest need in the world today is for people to be born again, and this
only happens through the preaching and hearing of the gospel (Romans 1:16-17, 1
Peter 1:22-25).
We should be
praying for God's Kingdom to come, yes for our good, but most importantly so
that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Or as Jesus put it, so that Our
Father in heaven would be hallowed or glorified.
So, what are you praying for?
