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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman False
Expectations Over the years I've
heard some preachers inspire their audience with unbiblical expectations.
Inspiring people with financial prosperity, perfect health, and
happiness in this life gives them a destructive false hope that is not
Biblical. Even creation somehow understands that it and humans live in a
world of death and decay until the day all things are delivered from what
science calls "entropy."
Look at what Romans 8:18 to 21 says. "I consider that our present sufferings are not
worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For
the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be
revealed. For
the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by
the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself
will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom
and glory of the children of God. We
know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of
childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves,
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly
for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies." 1 John 3:2 confirms what creation understands. "Dear friends, now we
are children of God, and what we will
be has not yet been made known. But
we know that when Christ appears, we
shall be like him,
for we shall see him
as he is." If creation understands that we live in a world of death
and decay, why can't some of our preachers understand that?
Maybe that is one reason why the Apostle James says that there
should not be many teachers among us.
James 3:1 says this: "Not many of you should become teachers,
my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged
more strictly." As one who has given his life to Jesus, I have an eternal
hope that this present life of death and decay will be over, but until
then, I have Holy Spirit inspired confidence in Jesus that gives me the
necessities to face whatever comes my way, and we all know, things do come
our way. Let us never preach a
gospel of false expectations. Instead,
let us preach the gospel that proclaims that Jesus is the ultimate authority
over all things material and all things spiritual and, therefore, we
submit to Him in whatever comes our way.
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