Year 7, Day 15: Genesis 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Have you ever heard about the prosperity gospel?  It goes something this this.  God loves you.  God wants to bless you.  If God loves you and wants to bless you, then if you just do things the right way you’ll be rich, happy, and have an easy life.

The prosperity Gospel leads us to a place where we believe that we can evaluate our success at being obedient to God based on how things go for us.  It leads us to believe that the wealthy are closer to God, that those with easy lives are closer to God, and those who have few struggles are closer to God.

By the way, the prosperity gospel is utter hogwash.  Maybe you heard of a guy named Daniel, who was called to go into both a fiery furnace and a lion’s den because of his faith.  Or perhaps you’ve heard of a prophet Jeremiah who was hated by the people of his time and spent much of his time living in the prison of a besieged city!  Or perhaps you have heard of a man named John the Baptizer who was beheaded on account of his calling to speak the truth.  Or maybe you’ve heard of a guy named Jesus, who was crucified because it was God’s plan.  I could keep going.  Our prosperity and ease of life is a horrible measure of God’s love for us.

As another example, look at this woman named Hagar.  Her mistress asks her to bear a child with her husband.  She complies.  Granted, once she is pregnant she treats her mistress with contempt, which she shouldn’t have done.  That leads her mistress, Sarah, to mistreat her in return.  Hagar runs away, and Go finds her in the wilderness sulking.

But do you hear what God’s messenger says to her?  God doesn’t say, “Oh, I love you.  Let’s make your life easy.”  No, God says, “Go back to Sarah and submit to her.”

God doesn’t call us to the easy life.  God calls us to live in truth and submit to Him.  He calls us to submit to the authorities around us.  That’s why the true gospel is different than the prosperity gospel.  We can’t evaluate how close we are to God by how full our life is with pleasure.  We can evaluate our closeness to God by the level of obedience in our life.

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