Owwwwwww! Had no plans ever to listen to Joel Osteen based on what I've heard about him, but I had to hear some of it just so I'd know. Scary
This isn't Christianity, it's the opposite of Christianity. Positive thinking, Word of Faith, etc. Speak only positive things and they weill come true. You have power over your own life by what you say so if you say negative things you will have a negative outcome, positive things will bring you all kinds of happineness, success, desired relationships, blessings galore and so on. This is supposedly all in the Word of God, it's what He wants for you.
At the beginning of his talks he has the audience chant something that inclues the line "This is my Bible: I am what it says I am, I have what it says I have, I can do what it says I can do." All the positive self images I'm sure, none of the negative ones.
What struck me is how that is the complete almost exact opposite of the chant of a fourteenth century mystic who was seeking God,
I am nothing, I have nothing, I desire nothing but Jesus Christ.'
While I don't have much faith in chanting anything toward receiving blessings of any sort whether having the abundant life in this world or having the presence of God, the aims of the two sdifferent Christian pursuers are clearly entirely opposite from one another. In the one I'm seeking my own wellbeing, in the other I'm seeking to get myself out of the way so that I can know God. Osteen is Me forcuszed, the old mystics were God focused.
TThere is apparently no
deny yourself and take up your cross
in Osteen's ministry. But that is the formula, if it can be called that, for drawing near to God. Losing oneself. Scripture says that if we will lose oursr lives for Christ's sake we will find them, but we will lose our lives if we seek to hold on to our lives. But this is exactly what Osteen is praeching. Holding on to your own life and enhandcing your own life. That is how people lose Christ and if you lose Christ that is to lose everything. This is an evil doctrine.
It is hard to deny the self. Self is always popping up no matter what we do it seems. I know from personal experience that if I do manage to choose against myself in this or that I am blessed with wonderful experiences of God. I learned that years ago and then lost it, but I know that is where I want to go. It is God that is our happiness, nothing in ourselves is real happiness no matter how successful we are. In fact many people come to Christ from a sense of the emptiness of all their achievmeents. How amazing it is to find teachers who promote those worldly achievements that can only leave a person ultimately empty and bereft of the presence of God.
Osteen, like Beth Moore, commands whole stadiums of people with his Christless message of self-fulfillment.
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