Recently I was listening to a visiting evangelist at a local church who was talking about how God was getting ready to do something big. If you are part of a “mainstream” church (churches that do not lean too heavily on their denomination affiliation), you may have heard something like this: “There is about to be a transfer of wealth. The question is will you be in position to receive it?” This is usually followed by a bunch of scriptures and catchy phrases that used in a way to make you think that prosperity is just around the corner. While prosperity is talked about a great deal in the Bible, from all my years of reading and studying the life of Christ, I do not remember Him using financial prosperity to keep followers on the edge of their seats.

I was just telling my wife this morning that this trend reminded me of when I was a child when either my parents, aunts, uncles, older cousins, etc. would tell me “Duane, just 20 more days ’til Christmas!”. Now for most folks, December the 25th would be just another boring day if it wasn’t for the fact that Christmas (a day where folks give AND GET presents) was assigned to it. This is the attitude that I have seen in the many churches that I have seen in the past few years. Let’s face it, telling people that God could one day miraculously pay off all of their bills and place them in a new house is enough for many to keep coming back for more. Now to tell you the truth, I have seen many stories where God brought someone through when seemingly there was no way out (I’m one of those stories). But the common denominator with those stories is that the individuals many times were not looking just to be rich.

For my wife and I, most of our Christian walk was filled with teachings that dealt heavily in understanding the basics of the Christian faith. We were taught regularly about things like giving and expecting nothing back, how to love and pray for individuals that hate you, how to pray effectively, understanding the importance of worship, how to live a life that is pleasing to God, repentance, etc., etc., etc. And while we do not claim to have mastered this type of teaching, we at least understand that these are they things that hold eternal value.

Hebrews 5:12 is the scripture that keeps coming to mind:

For Christians that regularly listen to the “God is getting ready to do something” type sermons, I think the question that we need to start asking ourselves is “What if God doesn’t come through on our time table?” Let’s say you do have to declare bankruptcy, or a family member remains sick after years of praying for them. Does unanswered prayer on our time table nullify God? The answer to these type of questions can only be found when a person seeks to move beyond child-like expectancies to a mature understanding of God’s word itself.