Open Letter to Joel Osteen #1.004 – “It’s Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God’s Favor”
(New readers can click here to download the introduction and first chapter of Joel Osteen’s new book, It’s Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God’s Favor.)
Chapter 1: You’re Closer Than You Think!
Page 4
+ “Amber Corson was a stay-at-home mom with three young children. When her husband was laid off from his Florida construction job as the economy soured, Amber had to take a night-shift job to help support the family.”
This is a very common story these days.
- “Amber felt like God had bigger plans for her family than to struggle. She prayed on that drive home. “God, please tell me what I can do to get my family through this.” She said His response came to her “like a breath.” “I gave you a gift. Go plant gardens. Do your heart’s work.””
A couple of things here:
1. “…bigger plans for her family than to struggle.” This is terribly problematic. If God’s will is sovereign over our circumstances (and Scripture supports the idea so many times that I will not point to any particular references), than He has “no bigger plan” for us when He wills for us to struggle. Amber has an entitlement mentality, and her thinking is contra-biblical, yet you’re using the woman’s experience as support for your Christian book?
2. Anyone who believe that they must be hearing from God when they believe they’ve heard an audible message spoken to them in private has forgotten one important fact:
Demons also have the capacity to make audible their instructions to us.
(For further examination, read Pastor Bob DeWaay’s excellent articles on the subject by clicking here and here.)
? “She had a natural talent for making things grow…She prayed on it…She called her landscaping business Eden Paradise Gardens. It grew quickly and flourished beyond anything she had dreamed. It was her time!”
Yes. It was her time to follow advice from either an omniscient God or a knowledgeable demon. (Either could have known about her green thumb.)
Unfortunately, we can’t know with any certainty that Amber was not under the direction of demonic counsel, yet you write as with certainty that she received a word from God.
- “God wants to breathe new life into your dreams. He wants to breathe new hope into your heart. You may be about to give up on a marriage, on a troubled child, on a lifelong goal. But God wants you to hold on. He says that if you’ll get your second wind, if you’ll put on a new attitude and press forward like you’re headed down the final stretch, you’ll see Him begin to do amazing things.”
Really? Where in the Bible does it say that I can change my attitude so easily, all in my own strength? Chapter and verse, please!
+ / - “Tune out the negative messages. Quit telling yourself: I’m never landing back on my feet financially. I’m never breaking this addiction. I’m never landing a better job. Instead, your declarations should be: I am closer than I think. I can raise this child. I can overcome this sickness. I can make this business work. I know I can find a new job.”
Tuning out those negative messages is important, but there’s a problem with your declarations:
I, I, I, I, I.
Whatever happened to looking to God, not for our outcomes, but for His provision while He unfolds the outcomes for our lives?
“I can overcome this sickness.” What if God wills that I die of cancer six months from now? How can my puny will outmatch that of an omnipotent God who will do whatever He wills? (See Eph. 1:11.)
“I can make this business work.” Not if God closes the doors, I can’t.
Now, before I go any further, I have to confess: I’m an optimist. I sincerely believe that when God closes one door, He opens another.
I’m also a realist. If God ends a life, that person enters into one of two eternities. If He closes a business, He may be convincing someone to consider a change of vocation. But these bad events have their particular place and purpose in our lives…yet you know talk about that.
Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
As Paul is writing to the church in Rome in his day, this verse clearly only applies to believers in Christ. You did know that, right?
- Psalm 30:5 says that weeping may endure for a night, but I know joy is coming in the morning.”
You missed something vital in Psalm 30:5, that being the first half of the verse.
“For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.” (ESV)
Clearly, the recipients of God’s favor and joy are God’s children, the nation of Israel. Every believer in Christ can claim the same for themselves. You write, though, as though these promises are extended to every person who ever lived. How is it that God’s anger is momentary for the unbeliever who will endure an eternity in a lake of fire?
- “When you’re a prisoner of something, it’s like you’re chained to it. You can’t get away from it. I know people who are prisoners of fear, prisoners of worry, prisoners of doubt. You’ve heard them. “Nothing good ever happens to me.’ ‘It’s never changing, Joel. It’s just been too long.’”
Unfortunately, we’re chained to one thing that is the very root of all of our problems and you never talk about it: SIN.
One wonders if you’ll get around to talking about it at all…
(For new readers, my earlier analyses of Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile (by Rob Bell and Don Golden) is available for free download. Simply click on my title, Clear as a Bell, and decide for yourself whether or not Bell’s teachings match those found in God’s Word.)
