Last night I watched the 20/20 special on heaven. It was interesting to see the many different perspectives on the afterlife. But, that is not the focus of this blog. The last few specials like this I have watched have always included Joel Osteen as the face of evangelical Christianity today. Barbara Walters talked to him about heaven and he did a pretty good job of laying out what the Scriptures say about getting to heaven and that it is only through Jesus Christ. However, one of the things he said that I had a problem with is that God wants us to experience heaven on this earth now. That is the whole basis of his teaching and preaching. He teaches that God wants the best for us and that he is on our side. He avoids the topics of sin, suffering, sacrifice, etc. I wonder what he would say to Pastor Nadarkhani who has been in prison for over 1,000 days and faces the death penalty for having faith in and preaching Christ. Would he still have the same message to Christians in Africa who have their churches burned? Would he still teach that message to Christians in India who are attacked by Hindu extremists? Now, I am not trying to bad mouth Joel Osteen. He is obviously having an effect on a lot of people's lives around this world. But, his message is a reflection of American Christianity's view. We have a tendency to think that God is on our side and He wants the best for us. He wants to give us so many things. There are people who go to church every Sunday expecting things from God. Our focus needs to change. We need to start thinking more globally with our message rather than having just a local focus.
We live in a bubble. Our country has so many great things about it, one of those being freedom. We have so many freedoms. We have the freedom to go to our local church every Sunday, worship God through Jesus Christ, and leave to go back to our homes without the threat of being arrested or killed. Sure, our church buildings may get vandalized every now and then, but rarely are they burned to the ground. Sure, we may have someone playing a tambourine too wildly, but rarely do we have extremists walk in with machine guns, opening fire on the congregation. We need to start rethinking the message we preach and teach because we are only a small part of the Church. We are not the end-all-be-all of Christianity in this world. Our brothers and sisters around this world face death for following Christ. So, to say that God wants us to experience heaven on this earth is really not that accurate and is not an accurate picture of the Church today. If that were true, then I would not want to go to heaven because heaven would include shootings, church burnings, persecution, death, etc.
In our adult Sunday School this past year, we did a study by Ray Vanderlan. In this study he was talking about the Church and Paul's view of it. Paul had a global view of the Church, just like all the apostles did. Ray was teaching about suffering and he said that when Paul said that when a part suffered, the whole body suffered. In America, I think we read this verse with our local congregation in mind and that's it. We need to expand our horizons and perspectives. Ray viewed Paul's teaching globally. He taught that when a brother or sister in Christ suffered in Africa, we should be suffering with him or her. We should feel it because he or she is part of the Body of Christ.
We need to move away from the feel-good Christianity that is being taught too much. Not to say that God does not want to bless and will not bless us; the Bible clearly teaches that He does and will. However, we need to think about the message we are proclaiming. Jesus said that we would have trouble in this world. This is not our home; we are just passing through. As we are passing through, we will go through hardships and pain. We are called to sacrifice and even to suffer for the sake of Jesus (II Timothy 2:3; 3:12).
Our message needs to keep in mind our suffering brothers and sisters in Christ. To teach that we have our best life now is forgetting those who suffer for the sake of the Gospel. Jesus came to give us life and life to the full, but not to experience heaven on earth. We have brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering for the name of Jesus; let us not forget their sacrifice by thinking locally.
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