Joel's 'The Power of I Am': the Good, the Bad, and the Funny

Like you, I have heard the arguments from both sides concerning Joel Osteen’s gospel. He has devoted fans on one side and harsh critics on the other. In the hope of seeing (and knowing by his fruits) for myself whether or not his message is biblical, I read his best seller The Power of I Am.
In the reading of his words I learned three interesting facts about Joel Osteen. One: he is a very optimistic man, the sort of person you'd enjoy being around—and he is even occasionally funny. Two: he is perhaps the cleverest self-help guru in the business today; he knows the fear and darkness that has gripped the heart of America, and he knows how to release people from this fear and turn them back towards a light. Three: throughout the entire text Osteen displays a profound familiarity with exactly one aspect of God’s nature.

To better examine his teachings at my leisure, I took copious notes during the reading of Osteen’s book; in the page link ‘The Power of I Am?’ to the right I delve into these notes in detail. Through them I address both the biblically useful teachings and the locations of the precise deviations of Osteen’s gospel from that of God’s Word.

As usual, I have attempted to keep my stupid opinions to a minimum and allow God's Word to speak for itself.

Marginalizing Christianity

Today Christians are being judged and persecuted by the very culture and government that is working so hard to defend the rights of every other conceivable group. In fact, it seems the only group it is politically and culturally acceptable to marginalize and mock is Christians. And Christians are submitting to this persecution, bowing to the trend of sin-tolerance in the hope of avoiding the dreaded designation of ‘intolerant religious person’.

The Bible tells us to love our enemies, not their sin. Even more, it tells us to hate sin, in others and in ourselves (Psalms 97:10). It exhorts us to expose the soul-damaging sins of those in our lives. Please do not misunderstand: Christians are not better than other people, they are merely better informed (or at least should be) when it comes to human nature and God’s design for His world. We are called to expose false teachings and sin (Ephesians 5:11), to exhort and love our neighbors (Galatians 5:14). We cannot do these things if we bow down to marginalization. If we continue to meekly follow this path, we will become impotent in our faith, unable even to recognize wrong when we see it, much less able to call it out and combat it with righteousness (Romans 12:21, Psalms 94:16).

Let us not forget the exhortation in James 5:20 ‘Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.’ As we can clearly see from this scripture, we inadvertently help to damn souls to eternal hell when we refuse to recognize and call out (expose) their sin. We do our fellow humans—brothers and sisters in Christ and outside the body of Christ alike—a great disservice by turning a blind eye to whatever God calls sin.

But before we can do this, we need to first learn to keep a wary eye on our own souls lest we too be tempted (Galatians 6:1). We must first learn to identify the sin and sin patterns in our own lives (Matthew 7:5) and overcome them by God’s grace before we can take the next step. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

Paul Tillich's Advice to the Church

In 1951 a theologian named Paul Tillich provided the church with this blasphemous guidance: ‘A theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of the truth of the Christian message, and the interpretation of this truth for every new generation.’ Read that second part again. ‘The interpretation of this truth for every new generation’! Wow.

This statement suggests that God’s Word is malleable, able to be interpreted, tweaked, or updated as needed for every new generation. This is the inherent flaw in modern thought. Our spiritual leaders are under the impression that in order for Christians (and our faith) to remain relevant to the times, we must modernize scripture. This new thought idea is of course absurd. God used the Apostles to shape their times, not the other way around. God used Billy Graham mightily to influence the hearts and minds of believers and unbelievers alike during the second half of the twentieth century. He did not revise scripture in an attempt to please people and retain an appearance of importance in his days’ culture. These servants of God were obedient to their Creator, and it cannot be denied that they were relevant.

This man, Paul Tillich, made it his life’s ambition to bind together traditional Christianity with modern culture, and I cannot help but wonder if his work initiated the church’s drive to alter its very nature in order to compete with secular industries, a movement that is alive and thriving in American churches today, especially in the megachurch.

I don’t know. The point is to make you aware of what is going on in today’s church, to open your eyes to see the truth of the changes taking place, lest we be like the blind fools of Jeremiah 5:21 and be ‘Without understanding, who have eyes and see not, and who have ears, and hear not.’ I’d suggest a quick reading of the rest of that chapter; it is eye-opening indeed—and absolutely relevant today.

       

Our Trust Fund in God

What does it mean to truly trust in God? Have you considered this question?

My grandfather, a great man of God, once noted that ‘Every time we worry about something, we are showing God that we don’t trust Him.’

To trust God means to not only believe in His goodness, but to believe that He knows what He is doing, that He is in charge. This is not easy. When we, like Peter on the Sea of Galilee, look at the troubles of the world, our faith in God’s authority over everything begins to waver. It is admittedly difficult to observe a world filled with tragedies and murder, rape, corruption, and pedophilia, and truly trust that God is in control. It is even more difficult to trust when we realize that everything happens either by His active will or His permissive will.

How do you trust a God who allows such evil?

The truth we must grasp is this: God’s ways are not our ways. ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts,’ Isaiah 55:8-9.

In today’s society we are bombarded with propaganda against God’s goodness. We are told that a truly good god would not permit evil in his world. We are indoctrinated with the lie that because evil exists God must either not exist, or that He must be a vicious, vengeful being bent on our destruction.

But the simple truth is that we do not understand the problem of evil, and that God never intended that we should. People are not comfortable with the idea of not knowing why terrible things happen; we do not want to accept the truth that God’s understanding is beyond our own. That we are not meant to completely comprehend His ways. But His ways are beyond us. Personally, I would not want to worship a God I fully understood. I want my God to be beyond me. I would not worship a God whose thought processes were no higher than those of corruptible men. I take comfort in knowing (trusting) that even though I do not understand why tragedies happen, God does, that, somehow, in His infinite wisdom, everything is working according to His plan (Ephesians 1:11).

To live a life free of worry (Matthew 6:25 and numerous other passages) is not easy. But, if we can learn to trust to God that He knows what He is doing, that His plan is at work in our lives and in the world, then we might just learn the godly art of contentment (Philippians 4:11).

Perhaps I am naïve. But the disciples trusted Jesus, and they certainly did not understand everything He said—not until He rose from the grave, anyway. Belief, trust, contentment. These things sound better to me than worry and fear and confusion. If this is naive, then I revel in my naivete!

Satan's New Thought

Satan has always been at work in this world.

Recently he has adapted and updated his methods, though they remain based on the same premise. Cult leaders have long known how to convince people to worship them. Today false teachers use a streamlined and cunning version of this same idea; instead of manipulating people into worshiping them, they convince people to worship themselves, a lesson that is much easier to swallow than the old trend. The cult of ‘I am’ has infiltrated the Church, plain and simple.

People possess an innate compulsion or desire to worship, this much has always been clear, in every generation and in every culture the world has ever known. People want to worship something.

Atheists invented and mastered the art of self-worship long before false teachers learned to deceive and indoctrinate Christians with this new-age idolatry.

The pleasing-sounds of hallow—and unbiblical—platitudes that ring out from today’s pulpits are more akin to metaphysical philosophies and the blasphemous New Thought ideology than to Biblical truth. A quick education on New Thought: New Thought promotes the concept of Infinite Intelligence (that God is a source of knowledge and power everywhere that can be tapped into for our own purposes), that spirit is the totality of real things, that human selfhood is divine, that sickness originates in the mind, and that divine thinking has a healing effect and that words themselves hold sway over the universe.

This last Thought is precisely what countless ‘success’ and ‘self-help’ books are based upon, of which a few are listed below: The Power of Positive Thinking, Think and Grow Rich, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Awaken the Giant Within, and of course, the two most famousest bestsellers, The Secret and The Power of I am. Most books of this ilk sprinkle the terms: spiritual, effective, successful life, self-mastery, step-by-step guide to success, and other pretty motivators into their synopses to lure you in much in the same way the Serpent lured Eve with his cunning and his pretty words. ‘No, no, God lied to you. You will not die. Your eyes will be opened and you will possess great wisdom! Go ahead, reach out and take that scrumptious-looking fruit, then you will be as wise and knowledgeable as God.’

Different times, same principles.

Don’t be fooled. Every one of the books listed above is based on the principles of the New Thought movement. The Bible specifically warns against such drivel in:

1 Timothy 6:5 - They suppose that godliness is a means to material gain.

1 Timothy 6:9 – Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction.

2 Peter 2:1 – But there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and will bring on themselves swift destruction.

2 Peter 2:3 - By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words.

2 Peter 2:18 – For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh . . . While they promise liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption.

The purpose of New Thought is to glorify and advance the self.

The purpose of God’s Word is to glorify God.

By placing ourselves on a pedestal and by believing in the power of self, we neglect our duty to God, and condemn our eternal souls in the process. But by worshiping God as the King eternal, immortal, invisible, who alone is wise (1 Tim 1:17), we will know how to and can receive His great grace and find ourselves in paradise when this temporary life is over.

‘Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden in the Messiah in God. When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, you also will be revealed with Him in glory,’ (Colossians 3:2-4).

In order to justify their declarations, the New Though proponents must blithely skip over verses like the one above, or reinterpret them, which is exactly what Satan tried to do during his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. 

Now, if any of this is opinion, then you can simply disregard it. (Who cares about some random blogger dudes’ opinions anyway?) But if these statements align with God’s word, then you would be wise to listen. I only hope and pray to open the eyes of my fellow believers to Satan's schemes. We sheep, after all, are so easily led astray. But through knowledge of God's truth, we are protected from Satan's lies.