From the rise of grandeur megachurches to certain celebrity preachers on TV, prosperity gospels have infiltrated into the American culture and indoctrinated believers with the fallacy that faith in God leads to a “good life.” Many Christians habitually assume a false façade of perfection to demonstrate piety while using the Bible as a manual toward the unattainable perfect lives. After all, if believers suffer, it must be due to insufficient prayers and the lack of faith in God. God, then, becomes a coke machine – deposit a “prayer,” receive a “blessing.” Every Sunday morning, the congregation greets each other with bright smiles and a “How are you?” followed by a systematic “I’m fine, thank you.” Few people see past the struggles and
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Her lyrics expose the repressed cries of a postmodern generation, a “desperate heart cry to the Lord, saying ‘God, I don't want You to leave me here alone in this same mess that I find myself in time and again. Please intervene like You promised me and come rescue me from that.’” As we seek solutions to fix our problems, we fall into the trap of using the Bible as a rulebook and a guidebook in order to live with prosperity. However, it just leads to greater hopelessness knowing that we will never achieve the standard of perfection. In the world of constant media bombardment, we can easily and habitually live behind a façade, with alternate modified lives. We must be cautious of churches becoming a social venue for self-presentation, with Christians using biblical rules as authority over other Christians as well as preaching the Gospel of peace and prosperity as the result of faith. It is time for us to refocus on the message of the Gospel, not to take biblical text written in a different context and apply it “as is” to our context today, but rather adapt it into our context while preserving the message of God’s grace for the broken through our own broken stories. “I want people to take away the hope and the promise that God will never leave you or forsake you, and He will never leave you alone. Even when you feel at the bottom, you are always in the presence of the
Her lyrics expose the repressed cries of a postmodern generation, a “desperate heart cry to the Lord, saying ‘God, I don't want You to leave me here alone in this same mess that I find myself in time and again. Please intervene like You promised me and come rescue me from that.’” As we seek solutions to fix our problems, we fall into the trap of using the Bible as a rulebook and a guidebook in order to live with prosperity. However, it just leads to greater hopelessness knowing that we will never achieve the standard of perfection. In the world of constant media bombardment, we can easily and habitually live behind a façade, with alternate modified lives. We must be cautious of churches becoming a social venue for self-presentation, with Christians using biblical rules as authority over other Christians as well as preaching the Gospel of peace and prosperity as the result of faith. It is time for us to refocus on the message of the Gospel, not to take biblical text written in a different context and apply it “as is” to our context today, but rather adapt it into our context while preserving the message of God’s grace for the broken through our own broken stories. “I want people to take away the hope and the promise that God will never leave you or forsake you, and He will never leave you alone. Even when you feel at the bottom, you are always in the presence of the