I'm sure you've heard the saying, "Everybody loves a winner." This is true in sports, business, politics, dieting, and just about any other endeavor you can think of. Count me as a lover of winners. I love to read biographies about people who beat the odds and did things nobody else could do. And when I find out my hero is flawed, I'm O.K. with it, because if someone else can do great things, even if they are flawed, then there is hope for me! I don't worry about picking up bad ideas from people who don't believe exactly like me. My heart tells me which morsels of truth are for me and which ones I should leave on the table. In fact, I thank God for people who believed differently from me, when I was stuck in a rut. But I know that everyone definitely does not love a winner. This is true, especially in the "Christian" world, where there is sometimes a tendency to celebrate failure, mediocrity, and even poverty, I think, based on some misreading of some things that Jesus said and did.
When I was a teenager, they used to like to do this exercise in school, where you imagined that you were in a life boat, but there wasn't enough food for all the people in the boat. You were supposed to decide who got fed to the sharks and who got to stay. This was all based on the assumption that the world was running out of resources, and it is so faith-less. God never runs out of resources, and He loves to prove it to His people in miraculous ways. In fact, I believe He wants to be put to the test in this way. Jesus presented His disciples with their own life boat exercise. He saw a great crowd coming toward Him, and He turned and asked Phillip, "Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?" I love Phillip's response, because it is so human. He said, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to have a small piece." (John 6:5-7). Jesus asked the question to test Phillip, and Phillip responded with "life boat thinking." A denarius was pay for one day of work. The outer limit of his thinking was 200 days' wages. He divided it up in his mind among the 5,000 heads of households and calculated that it was not enough to give each person even a tiny crumb.
I used to think it was unfair to tell people that God had great plans for them. After all, there were so many people living in poverty, who could barely find food. Jesus even said, "In the world you will have trouble, right?" Recently, I ran across the story of a young girl from Kampar, Perak, Malaysia, named Ooi Lin. Ooi Lin never knew her parents. She was adopted from an orphanage by an unrelated woman, whom she called grandmother. Her grandmother gambled away all their money and was too old and sick to work. So they lived in a dirt hut. Do I need to tell you they had no electricity or running water? When Ooi Lin first entered school she was not allowed to participate in Phys. Ed., because she was too weak. Still she had to sell little ratan baskets that she made for 15 cents a piece to support her grandmother. So, to recount, she was poor in a poor part of the world, sickly, an orphan, and forced by her circumstances into child labor. Would you have the heart to tell this girl that God wanted her to prosper? But God has a way of creating object lessons for us, if we are paying attention. Ooi Lin tied weights around her legs to get stronger, so she could attend Phys. Ed. At the end of the school year, they had what we sometimes call Olympic day, where they have races and other contests of athletic skill. I've told you about all the things Ooi Lin didn't have. Now I'm going to tell you what she did have. Her grandmother showed up at Olympic day, carrying a large empty box. She was asked why she had the box. "It is for all the prizes my granddaughter is going to win," she said. Ooi Lin took note. And she did bring home prizes, including the one for the winner of the 100 meter dash. Here is a link to a documentary about her. When you watch it, you will see that Olivia Lum, for that is her name now, had academic talent and drive. And she had great faith in her dreams. You can see that her grandmother had great faith in her, but there is even more to the story, that you cannot get in the documentary. Her pastor, Joseph Prince, writes, in The Power of Right Believing, that she was always conscious that God loved her, even when she was a little child, even before she knew who He was. I think that knowledge of His love for her produced the faith, the drive, and the "talent." She went on to create water purification and desalination solutions for many governments and businesses, and eventually she was named "World Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2011, the first female to win the award. Her personal worth is estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars (but who's counting!)
If I were to tell you that God wants you to prosper (be successful), you might not like it. It sounds like the "Health and Wealth" gospel, which everybody says is bad, right? You might think it is unfair to tell you about Olivia Lum, whose story is an outlier. She is just one person. But I am not trying to argue theology. I am talking about you, and your personal story. Are you selling God short? I have collected a lot of stories of people who were overwhelmingly blessed by God in miraculous ways, and I've noticed a few things that the stories have in common. First, all the stories are unique. You cannot lift the details out of one person's story and simply apply the same methodology to produce the desired result. There is a personal aspect to each story that reflects a personal relationship with God. Second, the blessing didn't simply drop out of the sky to an unsuspecting person. They were sowing seeds. They were expressing faith. Maybe they were overwhelmed by the answer, but that doesn't mean they weren't asking. Third, they were bold. They dared to dream big and ask big. And last, they had the "Spirit of Sonship." Paul said, in Romans 8 that we haven't been given a spirit of slavery that would lead us back to fear (fearing God in the way a servant would fear a master), but we've been given a spirit of sonship, by which we cry, "Abba (Daddy!), Father. Are you comfortable with that thought? How about this thought: the Bible says Jesus is "not ashamed to call [us] brothers and sisters." But, If you want to continue to think of yourself as a slave, be my guest. Now, if you are thinking I am about to tell everyone to go get their millions in Jesus' name, you can relax. But you will not see or hear me put a limit on what God wants to do in your life or mine. I am just trying to tell you that we are the ones who limit God. He does not set a limit on what He wants to do for His children.
I have noticed that most of the people who have a problem with telling people they can be financially blessed in Christ already have their money. When Jesus wanted to reassure John the Baptist that He was the Messiah, he sent a message to tell him that "the poor have the gospel preached to them." You can read something over and over again, and not get what it is saying. Why would Jesus think it is important that the poor have the gospel preached to them? Is it so they will be satisfied that they are poor? Does that sound like Jesus? When He saw a sick person or a demon-possessed person, did He say, "that's OK. In heaven you will be well"? No. He healed them! The gospel is good news to the poor, because it lifts them out of poverty! The Bible tells us to help those in need, because that is the heart of God. He wants to help those in need "My God shall supply all your needs, according to His RICHES in glory." But you say, "That is talking about poor people, DJ; some people are flaunting huge houses and fancy cars in Jesus' name." I don't know about those people, and I don't judge them. Jesus has taught me not to worry about other people. Did you ever stop to think that God may have blessed some of those people because He knows He can trust them to give money for His Kingdom purpose? You say, "Doesn't Jesus say, 'blessed are the poor' in the sermon on the mount?" That is because He has come to lift them out of poverty! If you are in need right now, Jesus can help you. If you have a job, Jesus wants you to do it with excellence, just like Joseph, who was eventually exalted. If you are in business, He wants to help you succeed. This is the heart of God for His children, just like your heart for your children.
Jesus wants to be your Savior, not just once for heaven some day, but every day, if you will let Him. He actually became poor for you, but not as an example. He bore the curse of poverty (that's right, the Bible says poverty is part of "the curse") for you. If you have ever read the Gospel of John, you will notice that John, the writer, refers to himself as "the one whom Jesus loved." I always wondered why he wrote that. Did Jesus really love him more than the other disciples? What did he do to deserve that? Is there something I can do to get Jesus to love me more? But when you read the other Gospels and everywhere else in the New Testament, you won't find anyone else who calls John "the one whom Jesus loved." So, was John extra special? No. Jesus loved all the disciples, just like He loves all of us like we are each His favorite. But John is the one who believed it. Believe that you are His beloved, His favorite. Because you are!