Joel Osteen is really popular right now -- with just about everyone (except a few folks on facebook). I suppose it isn't surprising. He is relentlessly upbeat. He doesn't talk about negative things a whole lot. He is someone who does his best to offend no one and please the masses. He is a politician as well as a pastor.
I'm not a theologian, but it seems that Joel Osteen is in favor of people living with abundance, being happy, and doing good. He doesn't like to talk about sin, because he prefers to dwell on the positive things.
He believes that God wants us to be happy and who could be upset with someone who is in favor of general happiness?
The problem with the whole situation is that he has forgotten how to speak truth. Pastors have a responsibility to speak truth, even when it is painful.
When I see my patients, I always attempt to identify good things in their lives. If they have lost a couple of pounds, if their cholesterol is two points better, I commend them.
I think it is just as important for me to share their problem areas with them. If all of my patients walk away happy and satisfied with themselves, believing they are paragons of health, they may like me, but I have been a failure.
In the same way, pastors have a responsibility to identify the moral decay in the world around us and in their congregations and expose it.
Somehow, in a world that desires happiness and abundance, they must bring a suffering Savior front and center.
The message of the cross is clear. Christ came and died for sinners, of whom I am chief. Jesus came to bring joy within the storm. He came to give us the strength to suffer. He came so that we could walk in pain and rise above it.
This world needs a real Savior who speaks to us in our sorrow, not a glib pastor who wall papers over it with feel-good statements of happiness.
There is power in the cross. There is power in truth. For those will choose them.
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