"The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts." (1 Samuel 2:7)--
Ideas have consequences! Put another way, how you think is inextricably woven together with how you act. We are experiencing this in Technicolor during the subprime mortgage meltdown. Prosperity preachers have turned tens of thousands of devotees into willing dupes for predatory lenders by convincing them that the Bible promised them homes they didn’t work for full of good things they didn’t buy.
Faith mega-star Rod Parsley is a prime offender. With reckless abandon he exhorts followers to experience abundance and luxury as a means of producing its reality:
"Some of you better get ready to drive around in neighborhoods where you never thought you’d be able to afford to live. Some of you better go down to that Lexus and Mercedes dealership and just sit down in one of those things with that leather all over it."
If asked to give a reason for the hope of the luxury that lies within them, Parsley simply instructs followers to respond, "Well, I’m just feeling out what my Father is going to give me . . . I heard a word from the man of God, and when I obeyed that word, it unleashed that anointing into my life, and I’m on my way to houses I didn’t build, full of good things I didn’t have to buy."
Together with a host of prosperity preachers ranging from Paula White to T.D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer such prosperity preachers have created a crisis in Christianity and the culture that I could scarcely have imagined two decades ago. –Hank Hanegraaff
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After reading this, I was reminded of the following word - a biblical admonition/rebuke - from Pastor John Piper (take a look):
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