Perhaps the conversion of Joel Osteen
wouldn’t look as impressive as that of the Apostle
Paul’s if they were both compared side by side in two
stain-glass window depictions of the events, but it’s
impact was undoubtedly no less profound upon Osteen.
Picture young Joel sitting down, surrounded by a throng
of well-wishers, as he gazes hypnotically into the
candles of his seventh birthday’s cake. Joel’s lungs
begin to fill with air as the caterwauling of “Happy
Birthday” winds down to a hush. An image of a brand new
red bicycle materializes suddenly in his mind, releasing
the air from his lips, extinguishing the flames of the
candles. Then, before the smoke can even think of
rising, the entire birthday cake bursts into flames.
Inextricably drawn to the strange sight, Joel leans
cautiously towards the cake.
“Joel! Joel!” a voice calls out from
within the cake.
“Here I am,” replies Joel.
“Do not come any closer,” the voice
demands. “Remove your sneakers, for the place you are
standing on is holy ground. I am the god of the those
who deserve only the best from life and demand the
sweetest perfumed roses in the garden of life.”
Emboldened by this statement, Joel
thrusts both hands into the cake.
“Yes! Yes, Joel! That’s the ticket! I
have seen the misery of the American people as they
suffer from not having as much materialistic crap as the
American Dream promised them. I have heard their crying
out because their televisions aren’t big enough, their
life isn’t wonderful enough, and they don’t have yachts
large enough to host rap videos.”
“What are rap videos?”
“You shall see one day, Joel, but for now
unwrap your new bicycle along with all your other richly
deserved presents for today is your birthday, champ!”
As Joel grew, so did his understanding of
his god. Joel came to understand that while his
birthday was literally only once a year, spiritually it
was everyday. Then he realized that the cake god
decreed that everyone else was so special that their
birthdays were year round too. About this time, Joel
realized that others would be more likely to accept his
cake god if he called him “Jesus”, which in turn greatly
increased his book sales as well as the tithes at his
budding mega church.
How someone understands the nature of God
is inseparable to their relationship to Him. This
nugget of theological truth, although deceptively
simplistic upon initial consideration, has profound
spiritual implications for how a person lives out his or
her life. With this being the case, an accurate grasp
of the nature of God is a must for not only stodgy
theologians but to all Christians. Of course, while a
person can understand a good deal about who God is,
never will he or she fully comprehend the Godhead, at
least not this side of Heaven. Yet, there is a great
deal of great importance that we should, and, in some
cases, must know in order to be in right standing with
God and live a life pleasing to Him. Otherwise we might
start griping in our prayers about not having our yacht
yet.
Any accurate understanding of God must
start with Jesus. “No one has ever seen God, but God
the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made
him known,” declares the opening chapter of the Gospel
of John (v. 18 NIV). To know God we must first know
Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God incarnate. Any attempt to
do otherwise is doomed to fail. Perhaps this is a less
than popular message in today’s relativistic and
inclusive age where claims to absolute truth are at best
greeted with suspicion and, at worst, greeted with
contempt. Yet every Christian who takes their title
from Christ must reconcile themselves to His words when
He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me. If you
really knew me, you would know my Father as well” (John
14:6-7). While some faux-enlightened folks may say that
statements such as this one put God in an awfully small
box, let us recall that Jesus never shirked from “small
boxes” with sayings like, “Enter through the narrow
gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that
leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But
small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to
life, and only a few find it,” (Matthew 7:13-14). After
all, truth, if it is to be truth, must have parameters.
Otherwise, you are left with mere opinion, preference,
or speculation.
With Jesus as the way to God and the
starting point in the journey to knowing God, let us
turn to the cross of Calvary, for more than anywhere
else it is at the cross that the nature of God is
expressed. The hymns of old, rich in solid theology,
can at times succulently and poetically convey the most
sublime of truths. Such is the case with the second
stanza of the Welch hymn “Here is Love, Vast as the
Ocean” that so eloquently presents God’s motives behind
the cross:
On the mount of crucifixion
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide
Grace and love like mighty rivers
Flowed incessant from above
Heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love
Through the cross, God poured out His
mercy as “a vast and gracious tide” upon a “guilty
world” as He inversely poured out His wrath upon His
guiltless Son for the sins of the world. While “mercy”
is a lovely word that warms the cockles of the heart;
“guilt” is an uncomfortable word that gets stuck in the
back of the throat like the shard of a corn chip. Guilt
implies that a wrong was committed, a wrong that merits
punishment, and the idea of punishment doesn’t warm the
heart too much. Guilt says that all is not well.
Mercy, on the other hand, says the exact opposite.
Mercy says although things may not be right, they will
be made right. And it is here, at the cross, that all
that is not right is made right as two facets of God’s
nature meet. On the one side, there is His
righteousness which demands moral perfection and,
justly, demands punishment for the guilt of sin. Just
as a good judge must punish those who break the law
rather than sweep the offense under the rug, so God must
punish those who break His law if He is to remain just.
If this were the end of the story and all of humankind
got what they justly deserved, all hope would be lost
for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
(Romans 3:23), but praise be to God it is not the end of
the story! Although God is a holy God, whose “eyes are
too pure to look on evil; (and) cannot tolerate wrong”
(Habakkuk 1:13), He is also, fortunately, a loving God.
This is not merely a sentimental, fuzzy “love” that is
part of God’s character. No. This is a “great love”
(Ephesians 2:4) , an “unfailing love” (Psalm 48:9) “that
reaches to the heavens” (Psalm 36:5), and, most
wonderful of all, it is a sacrificial, life giving love!
“This is how God showed his love among
us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we
might live through him. This is love: not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins.” (John 4:9-10).
God’s love and justice find
reconciliation at the cross where “Heaven’s peace and
perfect justice / Kissed a guilty world in love.” By
the sacrificial death of Christ upon the cross, God
solved the dilemma of how He could forgive condemned
sinners and still remain just, maintaining both His love
and righteousness in perfect harmony.
These two essential characteristics of
God must be understood before a sinner can enter into a
right relationship with a holy God. Of what value is
the cross to someone who does not understand their
desperate need for forgiveness before a Righteous Judge?
Can a person cry out for mercy before they are aware of
their guilt? If a person doesn’t understand their
complete and utter helplessness to make amends for their
sins before a holy God, they will never have need for a
Savior. For this reason we must have some rudimentary
understanding of the nature of God. No one ignorant of
how much they deserve Hell shall ever enter the gates of
Heaven. This, of course, makes perfect sense with the
necessary requirement of a savior being that they save
someone from something. Why would I need a savior if
there is nothing to save me from? This ignorance must
be dispelled. After all, as Christians we are called to
be ambassadors of God. Therefore, let us represent our
Lord faithfully, both for the sake of His glory and for
the sake of the souls of others.
So with all this said, what’s with the
satirical pop shot at Osteen at the beginning of the
column? If there is a right way to approach God, then
there must by default also be a wrong way to approach
God. As we have seen earlier, there is a right way to
initially come to God in repentance, understanding both
the holiness of God and our wretched sinfulness. An
accurate understanding of God combined with a true
conversion would lead a penitent sinner to pray
something along the lines of “Lord, I am a sinner! Have
mercy! Forgive me!” A wrong-minded understanding of God
combined with impure motives would lead a confused
sinner to pray something along the lines of “God, I am a
champion! Gimme gimme! I want my best life now!” The
biggest problem humanity faces is not the need for their
best life now. The biggest problem humanity faces still
echoes from the desperate cry of the jailer in the 16th
chapter of the Book of Acts to this very day: “What must
I do to be saved?”
Just as there is a wrong way to initially
come to God, there is likewise a wrong way to walk with
God. Anyone with even the flimsiest of familiarity with
the Bible has probably stumbled across the title of
“Lord” being used with God. Likewise, the title of
“servant” is used numerous times for His followers
establishing the hierarchal relationship between God and
His followers. Herein lies a crucial component of the
Christian’s walk: obedience to Christ. A servant by its
very nature does the will of his lord. As such, it is a
natural overflowing of a spiritually healthy Christian’s
love of Christ to obey Him, as Jesus said, “If you love
me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:5). A mature
Christian will love God and hate his or her sin which
grieves God and causes relational distance between God
and His children. Holiness, on the other hand, brings
us closer to God. Charles Spurgeon, known as the Prince
of Preachers, once wrote that “If I had my choice of all
the blessings I can conceive of, I would choose perfect
conformity to the Lord Jesus, or, in one word,
holiness.” How often does Joel Osteen preach on
holiness in conjunction with all of his talk of the
blessings of God? Not that often I’d wager.
Undoubtedly, this is because Spurgeon’s understanding
of God was vastly different than that of Osteen. One
can’t walk away from one of Osteen’s sermons without
thinking that God is primarily concerned with His
followers’ comfort and happiness. The idea of knowing
Christ and suffering might be a foreign concept to
Joel’s preaching but it wasn’t to the Apostle Paul, who
wrote “I want to know Christ and the power of His
resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his
sufferings, becoming like him in His death.” To Paul,
fellowship with Christ entailed suffering. It is hard
to picture Philippians 3:10 working into Osteen’s
theology. Surely, the man has masterfully twisted many
Scriptures to misrepresent God, but this one seems
beyond even his ability. You see, unlike the cosmic
birthday cake that appeared to young Joel on his seventh
birthday, the God of the Bible is more concerned with
your holiness (i.e. becoming like Christ) than your
happiness, and, ultimately, our holiness is of much
greater eternal worth than our fleeting happiness. Does
God enjoy our suffering? Of course not, but He won’t
always keep us free from it either. In fact, there may
be times when He purposely brings suffering our way for
the purpose of conforming us to the image of Christ.
Imagine trying to give a copy of Osteen’s Your Best
Life Now to console Job in the midst of trial. Who
knows? Perhaps ol’ Job would have laughed so hard at
such a ludicrous parody of his God that it might have
given him some relief after all.
