You Will Be Like God!

Although I mentioned that I saw part of Joel Osteen's sermon yesterday, I must confess that I am not in the habit of watching/listening to Joel. My observations and criticisms of his teaching are largely based on his book Become a Better You. And to a lesser degree on the comments I have heard from him in his interviews.

Even the titles of Joel Osteen's books Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You are offensive to any self-denying, cross-bearing disciple of Jesus. Both are built on a foundation of human potential, self-actualization and self-improvement.

And that is the main problem with Joel Osteen's message of hope and positive thinking. It has a false foundation, or perhaps I should say, there is no foundation at all. In the entire book Become a Better You, there is missing any exhortation that to accomplish any of these "better" things, you must be born again and governed by the Holy Spirit. In fact, it seems very significant (perhaps symbolic) that it is not "in" the book, but in the epilogue (last page) that Joel Osteen tells the reader that a relationship with Jesus Christ is important -- almost like an afterthought.

So what is Joel Osteen's foundation? In the very first paragraph, we read Joel Osteen's premise for self-improvement and self-actualization: "God puts something deep down inside us that evokes a desire to be more like Him [God]." You will not find that in the Bible. In fact, it is NOT God who evokes in man a desire to be like God. It is the devil himself whose first lure to Adam and Eve was this: if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God.

Please note: having the image of God and being like God are NOT the same. A passage of Scripture in Isaiah which describes the fall of Lucifer (Satan) tells us his fall from heaven is found in the words: “I will make myself like the Most High [God].” Satan promises “you will be like God.” The meaning of like God is: independence, autonomy, and self-reliance. It may be hard for the followers of Joel Osteen to wrap their minds around this, but self-determination and self-sufficiency are ‘things’ God never intended. Adam, our prototype, was God-dependent, God-governed, and God-reliant. By choosing to be like God, Adam was choosing to be his own god, in effect, rejecting God’s rule over his life—something never intended by God.

Joel Osteen’s self-centered teaching is as old the Garden of Eden. And this foundation will not hold up when the storms of life take place. The faith of many will be ship-wrecked. Joel Osteen is not preparing you for the hard times that are certain to come upon you. His is a house built on the sand.

What Does It Mean to "HATE Your Life"?

This morning in my quiet time, I was led to Jesus' words in John 12:25: "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal." Hating your life means you are aware, by Holy Spirit revelation of course, that "in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing" (Romans 7:18). When a Christian becomes aware of this, it is a turning point from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness - "not I but Christ" (Galatians 2:20).

Then I went to the Fitness Club, and while I was doing my workout Joel Osteen was on TV. His words struck me: "it is not important what others think about you; what is important is that you love yourself." I do not know how he reconciles his "theology" of "love yourself" with Jesus words to "deny yourself" and to "hate your life". But I do suspect these are words you will not hear from him. Perhaps some of you will say that Joel is speaking of the new divine nature. To you, let me say this:

Until the cross has come in our lives to slay our self-life, we cannot partake of the divine nature. Do we love our divine nature? Well you will find no such admonition in the Bible. But Jesus did say that the most important commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all you mind" (Matthew 22:37). But in his chapter on "Learning to Like Yourself" in Become a Better You, Joel Osteen skips that verse and emphasizes instead verse 39 that we are to "love your neighbor as yourself," although he adds the word "love": "as you LOVE yourself."

I think "deny" and "hate" yourself are two words you will never hear from Joel Osteen.  Again, I remind you that it is not what Joel Osteen says that makes him a false teacher. It is what he is not saying. When you get lost in your love of Jesus, you will forget all about yourself.

The New Man-centered Message: It's All About You!

In the midst of this brouhaha (don't you love that word?!) about the Obama choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, I heard an interesting comparison between Rick Warner and Joel Osteen.
Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life" begins with the words: "It's not about you." So, I looked on the first page of Joel Osteen's "Become a Better You" and found the words: " You [emphasis added by me] were born for better than this; you are meant to live at a higher level...You can be better. The question is..."What must I do to become a better me?
Seems like it's pretty clear. Joel Osteen's message is all about "you." The Bible is very clear: it's all about God. When we make it about "me", and "my" blessing, my happiness, we reverse God's order. Listen to this quote by DeVern Fromke from his book "Unto Full Stature":

"Christianity is not a happiness cult. It's primary purpose is not to make us happy...happiness does come through the Christian faith. But if the end of the Christian faith is to make us happy, then we are using God - we are the center - not God. This means self-idolatry."

Just this morning I read a quote from Rabbi Heschel (not exactly a fundamentalist Christian!).

"In our technological age man could not conceive of this world as anything but material for his own fullfilment. He considered himself the sovereign of his destiny... postulating the existence of a Power [God] who would serve as a guarantee for his self-fulfillment, as if God were a henchman to cater to man's aspiration and help him draw the utmost out of life."
As believers we are either man-centered or God-centered. We must be very careful we do not make ourseleves to be the center of the universe. When the center is wrong, then all that follows is wrong. Jesus said "seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you." This is something you are not likely to hear emphasized from the Joel Osteen, and certainly missing in his book "Become a Better You."

Let's talk about Joel Osteen

As I watched Joel Osteen's interview with Larry King last week, I was again reminded of the unanswered questions about who and what Joel really is. As Joel answered question after question about how people should be responding during these hard times, he missed one opportunity after another to lead people toward the only true and lasting foundation: Jesus Christ.

The question of the hour seems to be: “Who is Joel Osteen?” There are those who say he is the “coveted crown prince of the Christian kingdom;” some call him the “smiling preacher.” And yet, others say he is a dispenser of “candy cotton” theology. Some might say he is the modern day Dale Carnegie or Norman Vincent Peale—a 21st century advocate for self actualization and human-potential. And recently, he is being viewed by some as the heir apparent to the ministry of Billy Graham. Yet others are warning that he is a heretic, a false teacher, a wolf who has entered the church through the back door.

I plan to use this blog, as a link to my website http://www.dyingtoliveabundantlife.com/ to analyze what's wrong with Joel Osteen's message. And I invite your comments and feedback.

For now let me say this: the real problem with Joel Osteen's message is not so much in what he is saying, but what he is not saying. That is, his falseness is detected by what he does not say rather than by what he says. Joel does not talk about faith in Jesus. He talks about faith. Joel does not speak of repentance. He speaks of change. Joel does not speak of sin as the problem for all man's troubles. Joel does not speak of the cross as man's only hope for the problem of sin nor does not teach the cross as a way of life. Jesus said "deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me." Joel says "believe in yourself."

The majority of Christians today do not seem to be able to detect the problem of a man who says good things, but leaves out the most important things.

The most dangerous teacher of all is the one who does not emphasize the right things.