Category: victoria osteen

Posted in discernment, joel osteen, victoria osteen

The “good” in God’s plan for your life

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Here is an exchange on Twitter that occurred, one of many like these.

The Prosperity gospel/Word of Faith that the Osteens and their kind promote is a deathly error. It drags away the unwary, it devastates the witness of the true Christians, and it condemns the Osteens to hell.

The “good” plan for your life, according to the Osteens, is a healthy checkbook, a large house, health, and happiness.

However the “Good” that Jesus plans for us may or may not include any of the above. Peter was told by Jesus that Peter will stretch out his hands and go where he will not want to go (crucifixion. John 21:18). Paul was told he will be tormented in every city will he ever travel to.

“And now, behold, bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” (Acts 20:22-23)

Stephen was bashed in the head with rocks, dying a martyr’s death. This does not sound like “a good plan for your life.”

Victoria Osteen

What satan offered Eve was a temptation involving the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16). In other words, the world. And the Osteens offer the world, too, wrapped in a veneer of prosperity and ‘happiness’.

Was Stephen happy when he was being stoned? No but yes. He was in pain but also saw Jesus in glory standing at the right hand of the Father. Was Paul “happy” when he was beaten and left for dead? Or put in chains in jail? No but yes. He wrote in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.“

I have a feeling if Victoria Osteen was beaten and left for dead she would not have the wherewithal nor the capacity to shout Rejoice! That is because the Osteens attach happiness to their worldly circumstances. Paul did no such thing. He rejoiced with friends at supper, while teaching in the synagogue making disciples, sewing a tent, or while sitting in chains in the sewer sludge. That’s because his ‘happiness’, prosperity, joy, came from above, not the world.

The ‘good’ in God’s plan is Good not because we receive pleasant things from the world. It is good because:

  • God made the plan and everything God does is good. We proclaim this by faith, and
  • All things work together for the good of those who love Him, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28, and
  • God receives glory from the perfect outworking of His plan. The good is the glory He gains when saints acknowledge Him as good, no matter their circumstances. The ‘good’ in our lives is Jesus, not the world nor the things in it.

We do not seek the things the world calls good, but the things that God calls good. 

We do not say in our greetings and our letters and our prayers, “I want a mansion, perfect health, and a fat checkbook for myself” but we say –

May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you (Jude 1:2) because it was multiplied to us. Now that’s good!

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Further Reading 

Al Mohler: The Osteen Predicament

Posted in discernment, joel osteen, victoria osteen

The “good” in God’s plan for your life

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Here was an exchange on Twitter that occurred, one of many through the years.

The Prosperity gospel/Word of Faith that the Osteens and their kind promote is a deathly error. It drags away the unwary, it devastates the witness of the true Christians, and it condemns the Osteens to hell.

The “good” plan for your life, according to the Osteens, is a healthy checkbook, a large house, health, and happiness.

However the “Good” that Jesus plans for us may or may not include any of the above. Peter was told by Jesus that Peter will stretch out his hands and go where he will not want to go (crucifixion. John 21:18). Paul was told he will be tormented in every city will he ever travel to.

“And now, behold, bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” (Acts 20:22-23)

Stephen was bashed in the head with rocks, dying a martyr’s death. This does not sound like “a good plan for your life.”

What satan offered Eve was a temptation involving the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16). In other words, the world. And the Osteens offer the world, too, wrapped in a veneer of prosperity and ‘happiness’.

Was Stephen happy when he was being stoned? No but yes. He was in pain but also saw the Jesus in glory standing at the right hand of the Father. Was Paul “happy” when he was beaten and left for dead? Or put in chains in jail? No but yes. He wrote in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”

I have a feeling if Victoria Osteen was beaten and left for dead she would not have the wherewithal nor the capacity to shout Rejoice! That is because the Osteens attach happiness to their worldly circumstances. Paul did no such thing. He rejoiced with friends at supper, while teaching in the synagogue making disciples, sewing a tent, or while sitting in chains in the sewer sludge. That’s because his ‘happiness’, prosperity, joy, came from above, not the world.

The ‘good’ in God’s plan is Good not because we receive pleasant things from the world. It is good because:

  • God made the plan and everything God does is good. We proclaim this by faith, and
  • All things work together for the good of those who love Him, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28, and
  • God receives glory from the perfect outworking of His plan. The good is the glory He gains when saints acknowledge Him as good, no matter their circumstances. The ‘good’ in our lives is Jesus, not the world nor the things in it.

We do not seek the things the world calls good, but the things that God calls good. 

We do not say in our greetings and our letters and our prayers, “I want a mansion, perfect health, and a fat checkbook for myself” but we say –

May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you (Jude 1:2) because it was multiplied to us. Now that’s good!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Further Reading 

Al Mohler: The Osteen Predicament

Posted in bill cosby, Lakewood, self-worship, victoria osteen

Victoria Osteen: "When we obey God, we’re not doing it for God…we’re doing it for ourselves"; Bill Cosby responds, video

Posted on by elizabethprata

Two days ago, a friend emailed me the link to an amazing clip of a video going viral. It is a 38-second clip of Victoria Osteen, co-pastor with Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church. In the clip, she is telling the audience that they are to worship themselves, because God is pleased when they do that. I am not making this up.

I assure you.

Here is the transcript courtesy of Cross Map, Heather Clark, the same author as the piece at Christian News I mention and link to below.

Here’s Victoria Osteen, speaking to approximately 16,000 attendees,

I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God-I mean, that’s one way to look at it-we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy,” she declares in the undated 36-second clip with her husband standing by her side and nodding. “That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy…

So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy,” Osteen continues. “When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?

I searched to see if the video was a hoax. It HAS to be, right? Yet…the Joel Osteen.com graphic was embedded in the video, and the two figures on stage indeed were indeed of Victoria and Joel. Her lips moved in time with the sound of the words, so it hadn’t been dubbed or altered. I looked at Snopes and Hoax Slayer but nothing came up. Though the clip was from their website, unfortunately only the Joel-portions of the Lakewood services are put up (that I could find) not the first half with the music and the short message from Victoria prior to when Joel begins his speech.

So I waited.

It kind of took the social media by storm. It is such a blatant statement, shocking to our core. No, we are not surprised an Osteen would say something like this, but it’s shocking nonetheless.

In adulterous marriages, when one spouse intuits that the other spouse is engaging in adultery, our brain handles the information. However it is an entirely different story when we are confronted with the cold hard fact of it. We are not surprised, because we kind of cognitively knew it all along, but it is still a shock to the system emotionally, through and through. Or so I read.

The Osteens and all their kin are spiritual adulterers. We know it- cognitively. We know it theologically. But when we see it, we are as emotionally shocked as if Victoria had put rollers on her bed and theatrically performed actual adultery while rolling down Main Street. There is a difference between knowing, and knowing.

Essay edited to include this thought:
What is shocking about Mrs Osteen’s speech is that they aren’t even bothering to hide their apostasy anymore. Usually they cloak their speeches and comments in Christianese, paying lip service to Jesus. Here, that veneer is ripped away and they simply come out as who they are: evil blasphemers.

Meanwhile Christian News Net published a thorough article on the video and the Osteens. It’s here. And that was that. I wasn’t going to write about it because Christian News said all there was to say, and better than I could. Until I saw this video on Twitter. It’s from Manuel Brambila ‏@mbrambila, who I do not know, retweeted by Bjørn Storm, who I do know. I took a look at the video, it is on Bryant Harris’ Youtube page. But because so many of these videos are scrubbed from the net, I downloaded the video to my own hard drive and then put it up here. Hopefully this will keep the Archival Evidence of Gross and Craven Apostasy intact.

Though the Christian News article is good, I think this response is better.

//www.youtube.com/get_player

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Further reading

Victoria Osteen Ripped for Telling Church ‘Just Do Good For Your Own Self’; Worship Is Not for God, ‘You’re Doing it for Yourself’