“God wants you to ask Him for big things.”
– Joel Osteen, It’s Your Time
For this assignment I read the first third and skimmed the last third of Joel Osteen’s book: It’s Your Time. (Yes, I skipped the middle, you caught me!)
The quote at the top is my favorite. We tend to limit God by not even asking for things or not believing He could do them if He wanted to. It’s an interesting thing to think about.
Here are the quotes I pulled:
“Zechariah 9:12 says that we should be prisoners of hope. It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to get discouraged. But God wants us to be so full of hope, so full of expectancy, that we just can’t help believing for the best.”
“David said in Psalm 27:13: “What would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness…” No matter what comes your way, let this take root. You have to believe you will see God’s goodness again. You must believe you will see God turn it around. Be-lieve you will see God open up new doors. There’s something about a person filled with hope.”
“The Scripture tells us that before we ever showed up on planet Earth, God knew us. We’re not accidents. Your parents didn’t just randomly meet and decide to have a child. God had a purpose for you before your parents or grandparents even knew each other. You have the right gifts, the right talent, the right personality, the right height. You have the courage, the strength, the ability you need. But just as with the physical, some spiritual genes lie dormant, waiting to be activated. Every one of us has potential waiting to be released.”
“God has us in the palm of His hand. He has everything you need. And even if He doesn’t have it, He can create it. He can cause a spider to spin a web and keep you out of trouble. He can cause one smooth stone to hit a giant and bring him down. God is in complete control.”
– Joel Osteen, It’s Your Time
It looks to me like Joel’s niche is hope. And couldn’t we, as a church, use more hope for good to come?
What do you think we can learn from prosperity teaching? Do you think it could help us to balance out another side or draw us to a softer side of God?
Maybe we each know different pieces of who God is and some of us missed the hope piece in favor of the reality piece.
I’m not saying I agree with prosperity teaching (honestly I winced the whole time I was reading), but I do think it’s good to see what it might teach us about God that one of his children sees him this way.
What do you think?
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Erika Shirk 