I was recently asked to write a post on the meaning of “blessings” from a Christian perspective. Specifically, does the New Testament teach that Christians will be blessed with financial prosperity.

The first thing to consider is that there are those who teach what has been called the “Prosperity Gospel.” The shorthand version of this teaching is that God has included health, healing and prosperity in the atonement. This means that, because Jesus overcame the curse upon the cross, all Christians have available to them physical healing from disease, personal health and financial prosperity. Furthermore, it is taught that these blessings are available by faith.

I do not ascribe to this teaching. In short, I do not believe that it is God’s plan for all Christians to be healed in every circumstance and for all Christians to be financially prosperous. That being said, allow me to point out that there are inherent in the Word of God certain blessings that will usually affect all aspects of our lives.

In the classic book “Understanding Church Growth”, Donald McGavran points out that there is a principle of “Christian Lift” that has been discovered by missionaries. They have noted that wherever Protestant Christianity has taken deep root in a culture, by the third generation of adherence, believers--as a group--have risen out of desperate poverty. For instance, the real question is not why are so many third-world cultures so poverty stricken; rather, why have Western countries risen from such desperate poverty so quickly? The Christian response to this question is that when people live by godly principles it has a positive affect upon their economy. It is now readily understood by even United Nations economic officials that a culture cannot pull itself out of poverty with high levels of corruption. Truth telling and personal integrity are bedrock virtues on which to build an expanding economy. In this sense, God’s Word and will bring economic blessings to any people. The opposite can now be seen at work in the West as Europe slips gradually into economic deconstruction with a declining birthrate and welfare programs that are unsustainable.

Health is another example. Virtuous Christian living is inherently healthier than ungodly living. One would have to be an ostrich (or part of the liberal elite) not to see the devastating affects of sexual promiscuity. This time of the year it is also well to consider what affect the vice of gluttony is having on our American healthcare system. Here, again, God’s blessing is upon His Word and will in a very tangible way when we see human lifespan and health improve because of obedience.

So, the answer is: no, God does not always heal or give every Christian a Mercedes Benz; but, yes, “righteousness exalts a nation; but, sin is a reproach to any people.”

This post is a reprise of one I wrote in October only I have added a little twist. Here I am focusing on false gods. Most modern Westerners who are not committed to one of the classic monotheistic religions say that they are agnostic or are very nominal in their religious life. If they believe in God it is usually in a Totemistic way; meaning that they create their own version of a god and call it their deity. When someone asks them if they believe in God they immediately answer in the affirmative. However, if you dig a little deeper what you find is (as Robert Bellah found in “Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life ”) that most of these people believe in “Sheila-ism” --their own very personal deity (from a woman that Robert Bellah interviewed named Sheila). On the other hand, they would be repelled by the idea that they are idol worshipers. However, I believe that a large percentage of modern Westerners are idol worshipers and don’t know it. What follows is a categorization of the types of idols or false gods that moderns ignorantly worship starting with the lowest type.

At the bottom would be the god of personal fulfillment through wealth and power. That’s the worst! Why, you ask, is this the lowest? The reason for this is because all living things, each in its own way, pursue wealth and power. Wealth is directed to sustaining life and all creatures seek to sustain their lives. Power has to do with maximizing one’s own well-being and, again, all creatures seek this. Consequently, humans who make wealth or power their life-goal are actually worshiping a false god. They are also acting no differently then a moss or mushroom. This is as low as one can go on the false totem-pole of gods.

Next up the hierarchy of false gods is pleasure. At least here a human that chooses the pursuit of pleasure has something in common with the sensing animals. At this level a human is really just acting like a pig or dog. Granted, this is not very flattering but it is up the ladder above a mushroom. Actually by this point we have probably covered Hugh Hefner, The Girls Next Door, and a large majority of the American public. By the way, glory seeking is a form of the pursuit of the god of personal pleasure--hello, Hollywood and “E” TV.

At the next level is the god of honor. This is the pursuit of the recognition of men by doing worthy things. Yes, I admit not many people make honor a life-purpose. But, some do, like those people who volunteer for causes and work for charitable organizations in a sort of religious pursuit. The reason honor is higher then pleasure is because only humans can pursue it—animals do not. Pretty much everybody recognizes intuitively that people giving their lives in pursuit of good causes are nobler than pleasure-seekers. The false god of honor trumps the pleasure god.

Finally, the least-worst false god is knowledge. Here, as with honor, only humans can pursue knowledge for its own sake—not animals and not mushrooms. I think we all sense that a very small percentage of people pursue knowledge as a life-goal—but some people do. The reason it is above honor is that the pursuit of knowledge uses the highest faculties of what it means to be human—our rational abilities. Unfortunately, all of these gods are dead ends because “man’s desire comes to rest in the knowledge of God alone.” Another way of saying the same thing is that nothing is truly a long-term life-pursuit except God Himself—He has the infinite resources to satisfy.

Ever notice that there seem to be more and more people that believe in many gods? This increase in polytheism is probably a byproduct of the globalization of society and its so-called multiculturalism. For instance, people in the United States are confronted increasingly by eastern and pagan religions that have been introduced to its culture in the last 50 years through immigration. It is not unusual for students that head to college after being raised in a Christian environment to encounter new and unusual belief systems that may have many deities. But, why would anyone believe that it is possible to have more than one Supreme Being?

The first motive that leads people to believe in a number of gods is the “dullness of the human intellect.” Men and women are often not able to understand how anything can exist beyond the form of a physical manifestation or physical bodies. Therefore, people have chosen to believe that the most beautiful or awesome physical things such as the sun, the moon and the stars are divine and need to be worshiped. Another way this might happen is when humans project what they know about this world on to heaven and image that the gods are simply bigger, larger and more powerful then we. The gods of ancient Olympus were essentially these sorts of larger-than-life deities. These deities often have passions, resentments, and behaviors just like humans. Even though Muslims are monotheists, they believe in such things as heavenly physical delights (i.e. jihadist martyrs receiving 72 virgins as a reward). This is an example of projecting the physical world upon the heavenly.

A second reason humans worship many gods is that some people fawn so much over kings and rulers and that they give them honor due to God alone. After the death of these rulers, they are sometimes made to be gods and worshiped. However, this can happen even while these rulers are living.

A third reason is that people have such excessive affection for family and relatives that they end up erecting statues or monuments to them when they die. Gradually a divine honor is attached to these statues. This is a from of ancestral worship.

The last reason is the malice and machinations of the Devil. The Devil still entertains his desire to have man adore him and to sacrifice to him. The Devil takes delight in an animal or (horribly) a human being offered to him. However, the Devil relishes this in the sense that it dishonors both God and mankind. Consequently, the Devil loves to stimulate people to worship as many false gods as possible. This is why Paul noted pagans sacrificed “to devils, and not to God” (1 Cor. 1:20).

For these reasons, and may more, it is increasingly important to understand why Christians believe in one and only one God.

Hatred is caused by love. Sounds odd, huh? Here is what Augustine said (De Civ. Dei xiv. 7, 9) “that all emotions are caused by love. Therefore hatred also, since it is an emotion of the soul, is caused by love.” Okay, you say, how does that work, how does love cause hatred?

The reason we hate things is because they are contrary to the things that we love. If you love Friday nights with quite music and reading a book by the fireplace; you will probably hate spending your next Friday listening to heart-stopping, ear-splitting hip hop music at a dance club. I can certainly say with some assurance that the opposite is also true. So, it is in this sense that every hatred is caused by a love.

Now if you agree with me on this understanding of hatred; then the next question you may have is, how are we then to love those people that are unlovable or contrary to our natural emotions of love? Ever met someone that was just plain irritating? They may have a lot of friends, but, to you they are irritating. In fact, you may hate to be around them. This is so because that person probably has habits and behaviors that are contrary to what you hold dear. Be honest you probably know one or more people like this--therefore, we naturally do not like to be around unlovable people. How can you or I possibly love people like this?

The Key to Loving People

It is easy to love people that share our tastes, attitudes, habits and interests. However, it is extremely difficult to love people that have tastes, attitudes, habits and interests that are the opposite of our own. So the reason we are able to love the unlovable is that we love God--who is the center of all love. There you go, that’s the answer. In other words, I love others (particularly people you or I dislike) because of and for God. The more I love God and fathom the love that He has for me, the more I am able to love others. It is a big mistake to think that because a person is a Christian they are going to automatically “feel” love towards unlovable people. It is also a mistake to think that a Christian can somehow “jimmy up” love for the unlovable. We can, however, love others in and through our love for God. I can see them through His eyes, I can gain His compassion for others, I can even set aside my feelings of dislike and distrust for others as I focus on my love for God. On the other hand, if I focus on them, I will get into big trouble because I will quickly lose patience and begin to resent them. I must always be drawn back to my love for God and His love for me.

Chrismas is a great time to fathom God's love for you.

I posed the question about the resurrection. Why is it that God is going to resurrect both the righteous and the unrighteous? Why wouldn’t God just let the unrighteous stay dead (annihilated) and not bother to raise them up to judge them and send them to eternal punishment?

The Wonderful Justice of God

The fact that God is going to resurrect everyone tells us a lot about the goodness and wonderful character of God. He is completely fair and just. Let’s explore this by looking at two reasons why God would resurrect everyone.

First, God is going to raise up everyone bodily in order to either reward or punish us for what we have done in our bodies. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in 2Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” Of course, what is great about this is that God guarantees our free will by holding us accountable for our actions. If we did not have free will, God would not hold us accountable. Also, because God is no respecter of persons, we can trust that He will perfectly judge all of us for how we have truly used the amazing gift of free choice.

Second, because God created us to be a psychosomatic unit of body and soul, He will graciously raise up our bodies after the Second Coming and put us back together body and soul. In the Jewish/Christian worldview humans are not purely a product of the material world nor are we purely spiritual—we are a unit of the two. Therefore, because God is just, and because He has already given all of us souls that do not corrupt (die), He is also going to give our same bodies back to us in a way that they won’t corrupt. It is unnatural for humans to be separated from their bodies by death. The way we are—our nature—was given to us by God and we did not have control over this; consequently, God will give all humans incorruptible bodies. The same body which now is corruptible will become incorruptible (1Cor. 15:53). However, our location in eternity will be based upon how we have used our gift of free will.

Final Fun Thought

Again, God is completely just and fair. God is also kind. 1John 3:2 says: “…But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” What I love about this verse is that it may indicate something really incredible. Medieval theologians took this verse to mean that when Christ returns and the dead are raised and the living are also resurrected, we will be like Jesus not only in the sense that we will have transformed bodies, but we will also appear to be about 33 years of age—His approximate age at the cross. Those that were less than 33 will be matured and those that were over 33 will be rejuvenated. Okay, I know this is speculative—I still love the thought and it makes me smile!