OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: Prosperity and the Gospel

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Prosperity and the Gospel

I have been really pondering the whole rich American, money and Gospel thing lately. Two things have greatly impacted my thinking in this area. The first is the last lesson of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace course, which is labeled "The Great Misunderstanding." Dave explains the reason behind being out of debt and financially stable is not to hoard wealth, but to advance the Kingdom. I was especially impressed when he opened with an adoption story. The reality is that we shouldn't view our money, possessions or even our life as our own; we are accountable to God with how we use all of them and we will answer for our decisions. In the face of that, it's hard to imagine explaining to God our fat retirement in the face of starving children. I am not saying that we aren't supposed to save, because I believe we should and we do, but our wealth shouldn't be our focus nor should a cushy retirement be our life's goal.

The second thing I have been pondering is this short ten minute YouTube video by John Piper on the prosperity Gospel. I urge you to watch it. I have never been a fan of the prosperity message, but this ten minutes summed up for me some things I wouldn't have been able to put into words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRue4nwJaA

Someone has well said, "Our pocketbooks have more to do with heaven and hell than our hymnbooks."

Cyprian, the third-century bishop of Carthage wrote an amazingly up-to-date look at the affluent of the day, which could have been written today. "Their property held them in chains... which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their souls.... If they stored up their treasure in heaven, they would not now have an enemy and a thief within their household...They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves."