To Encourage You

James 2:5 “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”

One of the verses that should sound a death knell to the “prosperity gospel” is the one above from James 2.  You know what this “gospel” is, correct? If not, just turn on your television to the majority of what are known as religious channels, and it will become apparent in just a few moments.  You’ll hear ministers encouraging you to “sow your seed,” by which they mean send them your money. They promise you that you’ll receive great wealth if you do.  There is a continual focus on money. They’ll go on and on about how God is so richly blessing them with their private planes, wonderful homes, and other forms of wealth, and they’ll tell you that you can have the same thing if you’ll have enough faith. What a reversal of what God has said!  What a contrast with the verse above that tells us very plainly that “God (has) chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.”  What a contrast to Jesus’ teaching that “only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23-24). 

In James 2, James is rebuking those in the church who were giving preferential treatment to the rich among them.  He calls those who are making such distinctions among themselves as having evil thoughts when they do so. Yet, in so many churches today, those who aren’t as wealthy as others are being told, in so many words, that it’s because of their little faith.  If that doesn’t make you sick to the stomach, it surely should. If such preaching doesn’t make you turn the channel or go to a different church, you should be asking yourself, “Why not?”  

This focus on wealth within the church is a sign of a sick church that is actually very poor spiritually while many within it may be “rich” in the eyes of this world, or just as bad, longing to get rich. Didn’t God warn us that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10)?  Jesus warned of this condition in Revelation 2 in His message to the Laodicean church. Listen to His words of rebuke: “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” 

May God help us to reject the “prosperity gospel” that is so prevalent in the church today.  It’s most certainly not the true gospel and those who teach and follow it are likely weakest in the faith of all, that is, if they have any true faith at all.