In 2019, I left the church I attended my whole life. As a child, teenager, and young adult, it was a wonderful place to learn about and develop a relationship with God. The leadership was amenable to allowing youth to serve and be heard, and in turn, that made me and my friends excited to be a part of that body of believers for many, many years. But at the age of 25, I felt the Lord leading me into a new direction. In a lot of ways, that transition out of everything I knew was scary. I was comfortable in that church and it had a large hand in shaping me into who I was. I loved my pastor and the community that I’d trusted and gotten so used to. But once I left, I realized that up until that point, I didn’t really know my Bible. I had taken everything that was preached from the pulpit as gospel. And that’s not to say that my pastor was a false teacher or anything, but it is to say that I never really tested the full measure of scripture for myself, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself in the Word to me on a personal level.

Last week, we discussed the prosperity gospel– what it entails and why it isn’t gospel. Primarily, we focused on the financial side of the movement and how teachers of prosperity gospel twist the Bible to claim that God is the way to health, wealth, and material success. In my personal life as someone who wants to make freelance writing into a career, I follow a lot of freelancers or writing coaches to study their business models and tips. The weird thing is, without fail when talking about the “spirituality” or “mindset” of the lifestyle, they tend to mention that they subscribe to people that are known teachers of prosperity gospel: Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, Kenneth Copeland, and the list goes on.

Live your best life now. God wants us to live a life of health and wealth. Speak it into existence. Pray your way to a better life. I’m sure you’ve heard some of these taglines before. Last week, we spoke about the importance of knowing your Bible, and knowing the full counsel of God’s word so you won’t be led astray by false gospels and teachers that peddle an inferior version of the Way, Truth, and Life. Now, the Lord has been weighing heavily on my heart for some time that we need to meet some of these false gospels head-on. Unfortunately, the American Church is full of “gospels” that lead people away from Christ in droves, and it’s not because they are outwardly evil or obviously false. They often preach things that people love to hear and subscribe to.