Joel Osteen: How I used to view him, how I view him now, and the journey in between

  So, after seeing yet another post slandering Joel Osteen and his ministry I felt the strong desire to come to his defense. No, not because I believe I can change any body's opinion of him or be the one who magically and suddenly shifts the less than stellar opinion that many in the religious community hold of him.

I'm doing this simply because as Christians, we are always supposed to support one another, love one another and most of all - we are supposed to constantly encourage one another at all times and rebuke only when necessary,not the other way around. I'm standing up for Joel Osteen because I have been blessed,encouraged, and given the strength to keep on moving forward in my walk with Christ and all that God has called me to do countless times by Joel's messages and books and anytime we receive from a ministry, we need to be faithful to give back to that ministry and honor them in whatever way we can. This is my way of honoring Joel Osteen and his ministry. Yes, that's right, I said "honor".

In 2006, when I first came back to a faithful walk with God after an extended "vacation" from Christianity, I didn't even know who Joel Osteen was but I soon realized that I didn't need my own opinion of Joel, because every other person in Christendom already had one. Everyone from the Head Pastor of my church at that time to people my own age who attended my church and other churches. Being the "recently returned sheep" to the fold that I was, I just assumed they knew much more than I did and so I went along with popular opinion and even laughed when the snide comment or quick jab was made in reference to Joel and his ministry. I've actually noticed that many people have made it a hobby to make fun of Joel and His seemingly ridiculous and downright offensive style of ministry. To many, it's not ministry he's doing at all and what he's preaching certainly isn't the Gospel but downright heresy.

Because I grew up in a small independent Baptist church, I had no problem going along with this view of Joel Osteen at first. when I returned to God in 2006 and started attending a Southern Baptist Church, I was already going against much of what I was raised to believe. I mean, in the independent Baptist church I grew up in, just attending a Southern Baptist church and reading out of any other Bible than the King James version was considered heresy in and of itself! So, when my southern Baptists friends, who accepted me with loving and open arms, overlooked all of my tattoos, and didn't believe that the King James version was the only "real" version of God's word and even allowed me to be on stage and play drums, looked upon Joel Osteen as one step away from heresy, I had no problem following their lead.

In the first year or so of being back in church, I even caught Joel Osteen a couple of times while flipping through trying to find other pastors I enjoyed watching on TV. I remember the feeling I had, the immediate opinion and instant reaction. It was the same that millions of others have had to his ministry at first glance. I remember thinking "Oh, there's Joel. I've already heard all about you, buddy. You and your "feel good", "candy coated", version of the Gospel. Yep, there you go telling everybody that they just have to "have faith" and that "God wants to bless you more than you ever imagined". Just like many others, I listened for about two minutes out of sheer curiosity but truth be told, my mind was already made up. He was a motivational speaker, not a minister.

I mean, that's the problem that most people have with Joel, he doesn't preach the "Gospel". Where are His messages on sin and on righteous living and on not fornicating, not being a drunk or an adulterer? For crying out loud, where are his messages about what we are supposed to be doing for God and not what God can do for us?!! I mean, that's the problem isn't it? That's why so many people are almost in disgust with Joel Osteen - he brings out the righteous anger within them!! The real Gospel isn't being taught and someone has to stand up and say something about it! Sin isn't being preached about or even acknowledged by His ministry and it's just not right!

I must admit, I agreed with this completely. What he preached did not line up at all with what I grew up hearing preached nor did it line up with what I was currently hearing preached by my Pastor at the Southern Baptist church I was attending. It was totally different than anything I had ever heard. In Christianity and religion as a whole, we all know that one of the main unspoken doctrines is that if something is different than what we have heard or seen our entire life, then it is automatically and unequivocally wrong. I grew up in a church where we were saved by grace and not by works. yes, I was a Christian by grace alone but now that I was a Christian, I had to live right, I had to do right, I had to think, do, and speak a certain way because I was a Christian and as a Christian this is what I owed God. I owed God my life and that meant that all that I thought, said or did better bring honor and glory to Him. If it didn't, I wasn't being a faithful Christian.

This is what I was raised hearing preached - Clean living, Faithfulness, Being a servant. Sunday after Sunday it was all about what I was supposed to do because I had been saved. Anybody who has listened to Joel's messages know that this is not what he preaches. No, Joel doesn't preach about how we're supposed to live as Christians, he just preaches about God and His goodness, how He loves us so much and longs to bless us and restore us and heal us. It stands in stark contrast to what is being preached in many conservative evangelical denominations today. So, which Gospel is right and which is heresy? The answer is both. Both messages are right.

It is absolutely true that now that I am a Christian I owe God my life. Christianity isn't a free pass to live how I want and still make it to Heaven. All of my thoughts, words and actions need to be honoring and glorifying to God. As I came back to Christ in 2006 and started faithfully attending church and walking out my faith, I soon realized this need to be faithful to God in every area of my life. The problem was that I was raised to believe that "clean living" was my end of the deal with God. He saved me from Hell, now I have to live a clean and faithful Christian life. Sure, It'll be easier if I read my Bible and go to church but at the end of the day, if I don't figure out how to live a faithful Christian life, there are consequences and punishment from God awaiting me.

So how does Joel Osteen's candy coated Gospel of blessing and prosperity even begin to show me how to live a faithful life to God? How is his message possibly right and true to God's word?

This is how so many people truly feel about Joel Osteen. People who truly love God and are committed to living for Him secretly wish they could ask Joel Osteen how he dares to get up and preach on blessing and prosperity week after week when people really need to hear messages on how to live faithfully for God, how to live a life that is void of continual sin and that is righteous and holy and glorifying to God. I felt this way as well for a couple of years. I wasn't angry at Joel, I just wasn't buying what he was selling. I wasn't sure if God was really in His ministry or if it was even, as I've heard some say, the work of the Devil luring people into a false Gospel. As the days went on and on however, I became more and more frustrated at my inability to live for God faithfully in every area of my life like I knew I needed to be doing, I became frequently discouraged, defeated and at times even hopeless. It's true that we all need to try our best each day to live completely for Christ in every area of our lives and we love to display the areas in our lives where we have been successful at this but at the end of the day, we often feel privately defeated because of the areas where we feel like victory and bringing that area into alignment with God and His word seems impossible. We try in those areas, of course we do. So did I. I tried so hard because I loved God and wanted to be faithful to Him in every area but I failed time after time because I was still human. I was a Christian but I was also human.

It was at this point in my life that I stopped changing the channel when I saw Joel Osteen. As I listened to Joel's messages more and more I suddenly realized that Joel wasn't preaching heresy. Joel was just preaching about a God that I had never experienced before. Joel was giving me hope when I had none. Joel was reminding me of the love of God when I doubted it, Joel was reminding me of God's good plans for my life when Satan was telling me I was a lost cause. Yes, I was saved, and yes I had a personal relationship with God. I read my Bible and prayed to God and had even had times of personal intimacy with God where I felt his presence,love, and peace strongly but I soon realized that I still didn't know God like Joel knew Him. I must say that one of the biggest personal deceptions in Christianity is when we think "all that I know God to be is all that He is." This is simply not true. Yes, God's word reveals all that God wants us to know about who He is and how he works BUT that is where revelation comes into play. Have you ever read a Bible verse that you've read a thousand times before and it suddenly makes sense and comes to life in a way that you had never understood it before? You had read it many times before and processed it in your mind but this time  - it came to life in your spirit and it gave you strength, direction, peace, a greater understanding of who God is!

We are foolish to think that there is not so much more to God -(who He is, what He has for us, how he wants to show Himself to us) than what each of us know of Him and have experienced of Him to this point. As I listened to Joel and heard him preach about God and who He was and all that He wanted to do in our lives, I realized that Joel knew and was Experiencing God's goodness and abundant love on a level that I didn't even know existed. Joel was breathing in the air from a different atmosphere. This is where I admitted that I was wrong, not Joel. I had misjudged him and therefore wasn't open to his message.

This is where so many of us miss out on all that God wants to do in our lives. We stick to what we know about God. What we've been taught, what we were brought up hearing preached or even the beliefs that we're currently walking in and we put God in a box by convincing ourselves that we have God completely figured out and that we know just who God is and exactly how he works. We tell ourselves this because we say that we have a Bible and all of who God is and how He works can be found within those pages. Remember what I just said about revelation though, there is so much of who He is and how He works that it is simply layered -layer upon layer in the Bible so deep and intricate, that if anyone states that they have received full revelation of all of God's word and who He is, they are lying or completely ignorant.

Joel Osteen has a revelation of God's love, goodness, favor, and blessing like few others. I still find myself longing to have a heart as kind and loving as Joel Osteen's. Joel Osteen refuses to get on National television and call homosexuals out for their sin and tell them their going to Hell if they don't repent. He refuses to get before his congregation Sunday after Sunday and preach the same message of clean Christian living and the consequences we face if we don't fall in line. Joel just preaches about God's goodness, about God's love, God's mercy and God's desire to bless His children. Joel has been widely criticized for his appearances on national TV interviews and how he has refused to use his opportunities in the spotlight to promote the absolute truth of God's word or forcefully speak out against homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Joel just says the same thing during the interview as He does behind the pulpit.

I have listened to many of Joel's messages and read a couple of His books. I can assure you that I have heard Joel, many times, assure people that God does not want them to live in sin, that it is wrong and that it needs to be put to an end in their life. The difference is that Joel doesn't try to get them to do this by making them feel obligated to do it in their own strength because they are Christians and that's just how Christians are commanded to live. No, Joel continually points them toward Jesus, toward the love and mercy and goodness of God because Joel has realized something that many Christians haven't. It's God's goodness and loving kindness that always leads us to repentance. Joel knows that God's grace and power is not for salvation alone but it's through God's strength and focusing on Him and His goodness and love that we find the ability to live a fruitful Christian life.

I now long for others to receive a revelation of God's goodness and love on the same level that Joel has and on the level that God has shown me. I'm not where Joel is at but I know that I'm getting closer and closer. Before we judge Joel we need to take a closer look at Jesus' life and ministry.

Jesus had so many encounters with so many people and yet on almost every encounter Jesus didn't leave those people without them having experienced His love and His goodness displayed through His mighty works. I find it amazing that Jesus never went from place to place strictly teaching on how people should live and properly obey the then commandments. Yet Jesus himself said that I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Jesus also said that not one letter of the law could be changed but that it must be upheld to the fullest extent. Stating that if people wished to see Heaven they must uphold the law even better than the pharisees! So why then did Jesus not spend all of His time teaching the law? Jesus, Just as Joel Osteen on national TV, had his chance, in front of a large crowd to show just how true the law was and how serious he was about it being followed and this is what He did -

The Pharisees caught a woman in the very act of adultery, a direct breaking of the commandment that was to be punished by stoning the person to death! They brought her to Jesus right in front of everybody in the middle of Him teaching and demanded that Jesus prove whether He was for God's commandments or against them. The Pharisees were sure they had Him trapped! They knew God loved to show people mercy but they also knew that Jesus had clearly stated that He had come to uphold the law. There was just no way to show this woman mercy without overlooking the word of God! They were going to prove Jesus to be a liar and a heretic! Isn't this what so many people accuse Joel Osteen of doing? Sure Joel is a loving and kind person but that means nothing because Joel won't stand up and proclaim the true word and demand that people repent of their blatant sin! Jesus confronts the Pharisees and tells them to cast the first stone if they are without sin. They all drop their stones and leave. Jesus looks at the woman and tells her that she has no accusers left, that He himself doesn't accuse her, even though He has every right to do so. He then tells her to go and sin no more.

You might be thinking "well, that was Jesus, he had the right to overlook and forgive her even though she deserved death but we aren't Jesus. We have to tell people about their sin so they realize they need Jesus' love and forgiveness. If that was so, then why didn't Jesus accuse the woman, tell her how wrong what she had done was, tell her that she had sinned greatly but now she was forgiven? No Jesus floods the woman with a demonstration of His love, goodness and mercy, tells her that even He doesn't accuse her and then, almost as an afterthought, tells her to go and sin no more. Joel Osteen is simply doing what Jesus did. His ministry is not about accusing people, it's about showing people God's love for them. Just as Jesus knew that He was soon going to fulfill every requirement of the law and that He needed to show this woman His love and not accuse her, Joel Osteen realizes that their is no need to accuse people by telling them that their choice of lifestyle is sin. You must show them the love of Jesus. Be a connection for them to Jesus and then let Jesus tell them to go and sin no more. Joel Osteen has indeed stated on national TV interviews that God's word says that homosexuality is a sin (please click on link and watch video) http://youtu.be/tgCpRNfBzys  but he always reverts right back to God's love and how God still loves them and wants His best for them. You see, it's not that Joel doesn't believe God's word, he does, he knows and believes that what God calls sin, is indeed sin. Joel has just had the revelation that we all need more of each day. The revelation that Jesus doesn't focus on our sin and He doesn't want us to either. He wants us and all of our focus to be on Him and His goodness and love and mercy. That's when true change happens.

I admire Joel Osteen, I love Him as a brother in Christ and fellow Minister and I honor Him and all that He has accomplished for the Kingdom of God and I wholeheartedly support Him. He nor His ministry is perfect by any means and yes there are things that I would do differently as a Minister but that's because I'm me and not Joel, not because Joel is committing heresy or being unfaithful to God's word. Everyone's ministry is not going to look the same. Many of the differences we see in ministry and ministers isn't because some are being faithful and others aren't. It's because God calls Ministers to a specific area of ministry in many instances. Just like the Apostle Paul was called to deliver the message that the Gospel was for the Gentile as well as the Jew. I believe Joel has been called to help people receive a revelation of God's goodness and love on a level they have never experienced before. One look at Joel ministering and you can see that He's anointed to do what He does. No one else could minister in the way that he does. Joel Osteen pastors the largest church in America. As a Christian, you need to have an opinion on the minister of the largest church in America. You owe it to yourself to watch Him and find out more about Him with an open and prayerful heart because numbers aren't just numbers-they're lives, they're people and more people are attending his church each week than anywhere else in the nation. We need to stop just saying He's wrong and start honestly asking ourselves if we might be wrong about Him. We need to ask God if we are the ones who need to come into alignment with how Joel views God and not the other way around.

          

                Blessings : perceiving leads to receiving

        In the story of the prodigal son, there are actually two sons that we need to take valuable lessons from, not just one. We often focus on the prodigal son because we easily recognize this as a story of God's loving kindness and forgiveness but we often focus so much on this story being about God's giving of mercy and grace that we miss the fact that it is also a story about receiving. 

 

I want to focus on the other brother for a moment, the one who didn't run away. The one who did everything he could possibly do to be pleasing to the father...or so he thought.

 Luke 15:25 -31

²⁵ “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. ²⁷ And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, ²⁹ but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.   

 

 Obviously this brother was furious at His father and probably even more so at his younger brother and honestly, when we read the story, don't we all kind of know deep down that we would have a pretty hard time not reacting the same way? The brother seems perfectly justified in his "righteous anger"! He lays the case out to his father like a seasoned prosecutor laying out the overwhelming evidence against a guilty defendant. He also points out to his father not only the younger brother's obvious faults but justifies himself in the process by reminding his father of just how faultless he has been compared to his younger brother.

 

However, there's something the older brother has missed entirely...

 

That is that the father already knows that he has been far more faithful than the older brother. The father knows that the older son has been far more just in his actions and righteous in his ways. The father also knows, however, that this isn't an issue of who has been faithful, who has been righteous, or who has been just in their actions. The father knows what the issue is really about - 

 

The father knows that it's all about receiving!

 

You're probably thinking, "wait a minute- this has always been a story about forgiveness. This story is about the son screwing up royally and then the father showing unbelievable love and grace by completely forgiving him." 

 

You're right! this is a story that demonstrates God's willingness to forgive us BUT it is not a story specifically about forgiveness. It is a story about being able to receive forgiveness among many other things. If it was only about forgiveness, then why is the second brother even part of the story? This story is about receiving. Let me show you!

 

We all know Jesus was a master teacher and the main way he taught was often through stories. This being said, Jesus would not just flippantly throw in the second brother and his dialogue with the father as meaningless filler to end the story. Jesus wanted us to focus on the second brother just as we focused on the first.

 

This is where we come to the issue of perceiving and receiving.

 

The older brother was furious at the father because he was throwing this huge party for his younger brother who had just returned from completely abandoning his father and squandering the inheritance that he had worked so hard to put aside for him. The older brother could not even begin to grasp how any of those actions were worthy of a celebration. In his mind, I'm sure he was wondering how the father even wanted this son back in the first place.

 

The real issue the son has, however, is not so much the fact that the party is being thrown for his prodigal brother, but the fact that a party was never thrown for him! In verse 29, the older son tells the father "look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends."

 

What we need to realize here is that the older brother is telling us in this very moment, the type of man he believes his father to be! He says that he has served him, and never disobeyed him. These are terms that a slave or servant would use regarding their master! Then the younger son tells the father that in spite of all his "loyal service" he never even once offered him a goat to cook that he might celebrate with his friends. This shows us that the older son viewed his father as a taskmaster whom he served and never received anything from in spite of his hard work and loyalty. His perception of the father couldn't have been more flawed. This is why he never received anything from the father.

 

His inability to correctly perceive kept him from being able to freely receive.

 

The older son couldn't make sense of what was happening and just how wronged he felt because he viewed his life and his relationship with his father as one of works, rewards, and consequences. He lived by the code of "do good get good, do bad get bad". So, in his eyes, he deserved good rewards which he wasn't getting and his brother deserved harshness and consequences which he clearly wasn't getting. You can see how this older brother's entire worldview was being rocked at this moment in time.

 

Then the father steps in and says this in verse 31...

 

"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours."

 

The father was trying to get the son to realize two things. First, He calls him son, to remind him that he is his son, not his servant or his slave and he tells him "you are always with me." The older brother was trying to distinguish himself as better than the older brother because he had always been there with the father and had never ran away but the father was telling him "you are always with me". Notice the father didn't say "you WERE always with me". The father is letting him know that because you are my son, you will always be with me whether you're here physically or not. The father says this to show the older brother that even though his younger brother ran away, he is still my son just as much as you are and what he did or where he went doesn't change that.

 

The second thing the father wanted the son to realize is that it was never about doing and earning but about perceiving and receiving. The older brother never enjoyed the blessings available to him as the father's son because he wrongly perceived the father. He kept waiting and waiting for the father to come and acknowledge just how hard he had worked for him and what a great son he was and reward him for his faithfulness when all the son had to do was stop trying to earn rewards for perfection and start willingly receiving the benefits of being a son.

 

The father lets him know that because he was his son, he was entitled to all that the father had to offer, all he had to do was willingly receive it instead of breaking his back trying to earn it. All he was working so hard for was right there in front of him but he wouldn't stop trying to earn it long enough to simply set his tools down, open his hands and receive it.

 

We are the same way many times when it comes to God's blessings. The Bible is full of promises from God to us - blessings that he says are freely ours simply because we are His sons. Yet many times we are continually trying to work and earn just a little bit of blessing from God and when we don't get it, we think we need to work harder or live more perfectly as a Christian. I have come to learn this truth - If we are trying to earn God's blessings by how we live and what we do, we will never receive what we are hoping for because we're really not trying to receive it in the first place, we're trying to earn it.

 

our problem is not perfection, it's perception.

 

We are perceiving God and who He is incorrectly and it is completely blocking our ability to freely receive His blessings. I've always said that a blessing is called a blessing because it's something that we don't deserve and couldn't earn. You don't receive your paycheck each week and burst into thanksgiving and elation and say "oh, what a blessing!" No, because that paycheck is your due wages according to what you have earned.

 

Romans 4:4&5 "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness."

 

God is our father and Jesus paid the price for us to be perfected and to be in perfect relationship with Him thereby allowing us to simply open our hands and freely receive all that God has for each of His children. This is exactly why the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that "all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, yes, and Amen." Christ's death makes us eligible for every blessing God wants to give us! But as long as we spend our lives trying to live perfectly, trying to make ourselves eligible in our own strength, we are missing all that God has for us. We will never be able to receive from God until we correctly perceive God as the loving Father who longs to bless us and is just waiting for us to rest in Jesus' finished work so that we can simply receive all that He has for us.

 

The most ironic part of the story of the prodigal son is that the prodigal son had a more correct perception of his father than the older brother did. He was able to receive when the older brother wasn't. Think about it - The younger son, knew that his father would probably freely give him what was his, or he would have never even bothered asking for it. He knew that as his father's son, he was entitled to those things simply because he was his son. Even more revealing is the fact that after he had squandered all of the inheritance and was eating pig slop, he still knew deep down that his father was a truly loving father and wanted good for him. That's why he knew that his father would at least take him back as a servant. The normal protocol in that culture would have been for the son to be stoned to death! Yet this son knew deep down that His father was good and loving.

 

The most important truth we see in the prodigal son is that in spite of his sin and the hurt he had caused, he was still willing to simply receive all that his father wanted for him. He didn't demand to only be a servant and nothing more. He willingly accepted being treated once again as a son of the father. 

 

Are we allowing God to treat us as His children and receive from Him simply because we're his sons and daughters? Or are we still trying to earn our way as perfect servants? Change the way you perceive God and open your hands to freely receive all that He has for you!