Prosperity II

As threatened/promised, here are a few thoughts I actually shared last Sunday on this theme. I was recently coming home mid-morning from a small job I had finished. As I drove past a certain church I saw that the marquis announced that there would be service that very morning with an internationally known preacher. I had never heard this fellow live, and so I hustled on home, showered, and put on my dress jeans and jogging shoes. I felt that excitement characteristic of when you know God has rearranged your schedule. I envisioned him calling me out of the crowd and confirming every secret dream, even a few I haven’t had yet, in a mighty prophetic confirmation. Maybe even imparting some great anointing or direction; the paintbrush of imagination had wings on that drive back to the church.
I went in just as the song service began and found an inconspicuous place so that it would have to be God when His man called me out. So, there I was seated with two or three hundred others who were hoping for the exact same thing, I’m sure.
After the singing (the man has not yet appeared to my straining eyes), the ‘associate’ man of God took the mic and welcomed us, announced us, complimented us, testimonied us, taught us, and then begged us for a big offering in the name of being a prosperous people. A 25 minute ‘teaching’ served as the anesthesia to request that we dig deep…..for our own good of course.
After enduring this, and even giving slightly, we were informed that the big man would not come this morning, instead his wife was going to share. I stayed around another 20 minutes while she shared some excellent points stemming from some personal trials they had been through. As it was winding down, I slipped out the back and drove home pensively under the weight of the special anointing that did not fall on me.
This happened a few months ago. Just recently God brought that ‘teaching’ back to me. I realized that though it came through the door of the banquet robed in the guise of a prosperity rep it was in reality a poverty spirit. Pretty harsh? I don’t mean it to be so, but I do want the truth. The truth as I saw it, is that the whole teaching (not to single out these folks because I know they are dynamically used of God) was based on a perceived lack or fear of such for their ministry machine. I don’t use the word ‘machine’ in a negative sense, its just what gets them around the world to touch thousands of lives.
I admit that I have a dream: the church of Jesus on a ministry tour…..not trying to convince the people to give, rather showing them how to do so……giving away bread and fish to 5,000, feeding the congregation and not letting them pick up the tab. Is that too lofty?? Hope not.