Prosperity is Justification for Americanization!

There is a popular trend in the American Evangelical movement to embrace this concept of a "Prosperity Gospel." It basically follows the idea that if you keep in right standing with God ( give 10% to your church and don't sin) you automatically qualify to have as much money and as many toys as you want. No matter how many people in the world might be starving at the expense of you having 3 cars, a 4500 sq ft home, your jet planes and your rolex watch, you are blessed and the starving person is cursed. This is heresy! It says that you are deserving of this so called blessing because of who you are and what you have sacrificed to God.

The fact is that this is not Christianity. This is an orthadox form of early Judaism. In the Old Covenant your relationship with God was all about whether or not you made the right sacrifices to God.

We as Christians live under a New Covenant. Under the New Covenant Jesus is the sacrifice. We, in reality, can never be in right standing with God without the shed blood of Jesus and he has paid our price on the cross. Although we strive not to, we are all sinners and giving money to the church isn't the key. We don't have to make sacrifices to please him.

This is not to say I don't believe in tithing. I just believe that under our Covenant you give joyfully because you want to be selfless, not because your getting something in return. After all that was Jesus' message. We live to serve not to be served. God is pleased when we sacrifice with no alterior motives. I believe in prosperity and the Bible talkes of it but it's spiritual prosperity not monetary! We live under Jesus' Covenant not Abrahams. Being poor is not a curse! It's a reality in a fallen world and we should all be willing to give the shirt off our back to a person in need.