I am sick and tired of prosperity teaching

I have to admit it. I am sick to my stomach and tired beyond description of the so-called Prosperity Teaching that has captured so much of the African church. I know, I know, I gave some lessons on "Prosperity Principles from Proverbs" myself a few years back, but my goal was to try to bring some Biblical balance to the topic, not to center minds and lives around getting rich as their main goal in life.

I have to admit it. Yes, I could be richer than I am. That will sound like heresy to many, I'm sure. They'll say I'm poor because my mindset is poor and I'm proclaiming myself into poverty and I refuse to be rich.

I could be richer than I am, I admit. You see, everyone has to choose what will be the priorities and goals of their life. If I chose to make being rich the goal and priority, the center of my life, then yes, of course, I could be richer than I am.

Would I want to do that? What would be the price?

The goal I have chosen is to be faithful to my Savior and to do all I can to show the love of Jesus in practical ways to as many African children as I can. (Sounds a little like the mission statement of Every Child Ministries. Hmmm.) Now God has entrusted to me, as He has to all of us, a limited measure of His infinite riches. (He knows I could not handle it all, and I'm thankful.) Every time He entrusts me with a dollar, or an hour of life, or with any other resource, He also gives me the choice of how to invest that resource. I could invest it all in myself. Then I'd surely be much richer than I am. Would I be happier? I don't think so.

I choose to invest my resources, after my own and my family's needs are met, in showing the love of Jesus to African children who have never known it.

Yesterday I wrote the story of an eight year old orphan boy in Congo. We'll use the story in his sponsorship packet, to try to get him a sponsor to help with schooling and other needs. Emmanuel was born to a prostitute, watched her die of AIDS before he was four, then was blamed for the death of his mother when his family visited a diviner who consulted the traditional gods and declared that the child had "eaten" his mother's soul through witchcraft. The family began to hate him and he was cast out on the street. Who will show him the love of Jesus? My brother Joseph began by finding emergency shelter for him. Oh, he lost resources in that transaction. Now Joseph will never be as rich as he could have been.

What good would it do me to be rich when I could rather invest my life in helping children like Emmanuel. I'm getting rich. all right. It's just a different kind of riches than the prosperity people talk about. It's the kind that is deeply satisfying, the kind that can never be taken from me.

Lord, would You let your people see that they could invest their lives in something so very much better than riches? Would you raise up a people who would invest their lives in the Emmanuel's of this world?