The Grace Message I Believe Now - Part 2

Its no surprise really that many of the Christians I began this grace message with on Facebook, are now silent when it comes to discussions about grace – or they’ve even deleted their account.  The Gospel should be something that you do eventually “get”, without the need to constantly learn and debate with other people.  The church has kept people bound in a religious vortex from which they are unable to escape.

There seems to be a lot of expectations that people attribute to God, the Bible and the Christian life in general.  The Charismatic movement during the nineties and the Word of Faith message, created a prosperity and believing-God-for-something attitude that still persists to this day.  Even grace believers have been told, by the likes of Joseph Prince, that they can “just rest in the finished work of the cross”, as a means to prosperity and “victorious Christian living”.  I do believe in this, to an extent, but it does seem to foster a great deal of fantasy and unrealistic expectation.  I wonder if this is the reason why so many grace Christians, who were so active on forums and social networking media, have suddenly become so silent.

I believe in goal setting, but in the institutional church – it was always over-the-top, with the miraculous sprinkled in somehow.  Whilst I believe in miracles, they are, by definition – rare.  I’ve been running now for 2 years and have competed in about 4 10k races (6.2 miles).  A realistic goal for me would be to run a half-marathon (13 miles).  What would be unrealistic would be for me to consider running a 50 mile ultra-marathon – at this stage, at least.

The more you progress and mature in the grace message, the more you realise that it has a lot to do with permission to be yourself.  The church portrayed the Christian life as a continuous striving to be, do or have something you don’t already experience.  Hence, the fantasy aspect to Christianity: trying to be someone you’re not, whilst anxiously striving to attain unrealistic standards – standards of behaviour and lifestyle.  In fact, you might find that as you embrace this grace message – you become less and less of what you were told a Christian should look and act like.  Ironically, the Gospel seems to be, to a great extent, an anti-religion message.

It’s comforting to know that God is in my life, although I know that I can’t use clever formulas and principles to control my life circumstances.  I know I can’t make God do what I want, when I want; and I know that I can’t always avoid those things I consider to be bad and negative.

Although I’ve matured and improved as a person over the years, I still struggle somewhat with anxiety.  It was anxiety and its many varied toxic side effects that originally draw me to Christ.  In fact, I’d say that many, if not most, Christians come to Christ through some sort of issues.  Whilst the grace message has done a lot to help me deal with anxiety, particularly those induced through abusive religious beliefs and practices, I’m still left to deal with the anxieties of everyday life.  I would say that the Gospel only goes so far in dealing with this.

What I’ve personally found to be more useful in bringing peace of mind is a practice called The Work of Byron Katie, also known as Inquiry.  This practice is based on four simple questions and what is known as a “turnaround”.  Byron Katie asserts no set, institutional, centralised beliefs, as such.  But when people are invited to do The Work for themselves, a kind of focus and consensus of beliefs and attitudes comes to the fore and a kind of philosophy and approach arises out of that.  This approach has a lot to do with accepting “what is” and not arguing with reality.  This does not mean we should not be passionate, have opinions and take bold action – it just means freedom from stressing over things we cannot change.  The Work can, at times, seem rather extreme and controversial: there’s no way a religious Christian could adopt this approach.  But the grace message makes it possible for Christians to do this.  You might think that The Gospel and The Work don’t quite mix well – but I believe that they do.

I suppose you could say that my spiritual beliefs are rather unique now.  If I could summarise what I believe now, I suppose I’d say a foundation of Biblical, faith-righteousness, as popularised by Joseph Prince and Bertie Brits; with the core being a fusion of The Free Believers Network and The Work of Byron Katie.

I’ve invested a lot of time and effort (and frustration) in the pursuit of my spiritual beliefs.  I still don’t feel I’ve arrived and as much as I’m excited and enthusiastic about it all – I’m still inclined to be frustrated, confused and inclined to give it all up, at times.  Many have been the time that I’d pursue a concept with a passion – only for it to lead me to a dead-end.  It’s for this reason why I’m not so inclined these days to push my beliefs on to other people.  But I’m passionate about being totally honest and expressing my beliefs and opinions from genuine experience – rather than just simply quoting someone else.  I could be wrong with my current beliefs – but it seems to be working rather well and making sense, so far.

Grace Elements…Righteousness and No-condemnation

I have noticed that there are different aspects or elements to the grace message. There is the focus on righteousness and no-condemnation, as taught by Joseph Prince, Bertie Brits, Andrew Wommack and Paul White. Joseph Prince also augments his teaching with quite a lot of Old Testament symbolism which points towards grace.

Joseph Prince – The Mega Church Grace Preacher

I’ve noticed that Joseph Prince still has something of mega-church flair to him: this is understandable as he is senior pastor of New Creation Church in Singapore. There is a tendency for Joseph Prince to make the usual sensational promises that other mega-church pastors do.

Who is to say whether or not this approach is right or wrong? Joseph is popular and gets the grace message out to the world, so I’m okay with that. I think it comes down to how secure a person is: if a person is insecure they are much more likely to get obsessive about promises of wealth and miracles; whereas, a secure person may be encouraged by such promises, but will still value the everyday things in life and will have a balanced perspective. But I wonder to myself if such preachers should balance their teaching by informing believers that there is no guarantee that they will be made substantially wealthy and that they cannot dictate what they want and how they should be blessed from God.

Bertie Brits – The Travelling Grace Preacher

Bertie Brits tends to be more down to earth with his straightforward, no-frills teaching on grace. Bertie lacks the charismatic showmanship of Joseph Prince - perhaps this is the right way to go about teaching grace when you don’t pastor a mega-church like Joseph Prince does? Bertie does not refute prosperity in Christ, but he does emphasise contentment and speaks against seeking wealth and miracles through faith. Bertie teaches that we should have faith in Christ, rather than faith in things, knowing that everything else that we need in life flows from there.

Righteousness…A Cliché?

I will admit that although this branch of the grace message seems to be the most popular, and for many, it is the only grace message – I did not begin my journey into grace from there. I think what killed off the whole meaning of righteousness for me was the way in which the religious church just bandied the term about as if it was some sort of meaningless cliché. I mean, Christians would tell me that I am right with God, but then proceed to give me a whole set of rules to follow so that I would be right with Him – talk about being confused!

I thought that righteousness was living your life right. Then I came to see it as being a combination of right-standing and right-living. Nowadays, I see it as simply right-standing with God. The church tends to veer away from the concept of right-standing apart from works, because it seeks to manipulate and frighten people into committing to what is considered to be right living. Hence the term “license to sin” in relation to the grace message.

Righteousness is all about our right-standing with God through faith in Christ; it has nothing to do with our behaviour and performance. As soon as we focus on behaviour, our works, we immediately expose ourselves to guilt as we realise that we don’t have what it takes to please God and merit His approval and blessings. All of our wrong behaviour, our sin, is caused by us not knowing that we are right with Him, just as we are. If we believe that we need to keep rules to be right with God, our flesh nature becomes alive in us.

Am I The Only One Getting This?

When God started to reveal grace to me in 2005, I did not even think to call it “grace” and I had not even heard of Joseph Prince and other grace preachers like him. I thought it was just me receiving this message. This had two effects in that I felt excited at the thought of bringing something seemingly new life changing to the world; secondly, I thought that I was possibly going mad and was being misled. I did think to myself that if the devil was misleading me then it was a very elaborate rouse indeed because it was profoundly scriptural. Thankfully, I came across Joseph Prince’s teaching in 2006 and that confirmed that I was not going mad, after all!

The Mega Church and the Myth of Tithing

I had the privilege of listening to Joseph Prince preach at Hillsong London recently. I always enjoy listening to Pastor Prince’s teaching, and especially enjoy the experience of hearing him live on 11^th October 2009. You can download this podcast for free here.

But there was something that bothered me about what Joseph Prince said. Joseph Prince said that we should tithe; he then gave a brief testimony of one of the members of his church: Olivia Lum. Olivia Lum went from having an average life to being the richest woman in South East Asia. Apparently, Olivia told Joseph Prince that the key to her success was that she always paid a tithe and she prayed for wisdom.

Joseph Prince and the Grace Revolution

I would say that Joseph Prince is at the fore-front of what could be called a “grace revolution”. Ever since Joseph Prince visited my church, Hillsong London, in 2006/2007 – the message at my church has become a lot more grace-oriented (the pastor’s admitted it themselves). I have a CD box set of the teaching that he delivered during his visit and it is truly amazing.

Joseph Prince has a lot of respect for the Senior Pastor at Hillsong London, Gary Clarke, and Joseph preaches at the annual Hillsong Europe Conference and sometimes speaks at Hillsong London as a guest speaker. Gary has also visited Singapore where he preached at New Creation Church – Joseph Prince’s church.

The revelation of grace that has happened in Singapore is spreading all over the world. Joseph Prince’s teaching is seen, or listened to, by people all over the world: his teaching can be downloaded in MP3 format from his website at http://www.josephprince.org. Joseph Prince has a presence on Christian Television including the popular Daystar network. This wonderful grace preacher is influencing a lot of churches and Christians and it is probably for this reason that he still supports the message of tithing.

Darin Hufford on Tithing

Darin Hufford of the Free Believers Network has admitted that he does not believe in tithing. Darin is an ex-pastor of the Dream Center – a mega church in Los Angeles U.S.A. I recall Darin relating in one of his Into the Wild podcasts, that he set-up his own church after he left the Dream Center. He promptly told his new congregation that they did not have to tithe. Darin ended-up having an argument with his accountant because his ministry was rapidly running out of money. However, Darin would not waver from his convictions and he stood firm when it came to not deceiving the congregation into tithing out of an obligation or with the promise of extravagant blessings should they continue to do so. Darin concluded from this experience that the whole institution church experience is man-made and is utterly dependant on the myth of tithing.

It is important to note that the ministries of that of Bertie Brits and Joseph Prince, despite having a similar message, they are actually rather different: Joseph Prince is the senior pastor of a mega-church, albeit a grace mega-church, whilst Bertie does not have his own church, but produces videos from his home studio or travels to other churches and to conferences. There is a difference and if we are to take Darin Hufford’s statement as the truth – we can see why one preacher teaches on the tithe and why the other does not.

I’m kind of torn between accepting this statement fully and arguing that it is not the case, that there are some good things about the institutional church, particularly grace-oriented mega-churches such as Hillsong. However, I cannot deny that Darin does have a point and it does get me thinking. If this is the case, then perhaps Joseph Prince has to preach on the tithe so that he himself can continue to exist in a mega-church environment and so that he can continue to influence those who are also in a mega-church environment (the Hillsong Europe Conference being a case in point).

A Hint of W.O.F.

I also see some aspects of Word of Faith in Joseph’s teaching – particularly the daily devotionals he produces. I suppose this is to be expected because like me, his main influence was Kenneth E. Hagin. Hagin himself was a pioneer of faith during his day. Hagin had to overcome a lot of opposition from the church with his beliefs on faith for finances and faith for healing. Hagin was seen to be a heretic because of his propensity towards blessings, signs, wonders and spiritual gifts. God does not give any one Bible teacher a monopoly on Biblical truth, and more than likely, never will.

I made the big mistake of simply accepting everything I read in Hagin’s books without question. I suppose this was because I was so convinced by the extravagant testimonies of blessings and miracles; as well as the all-too-familiar name-it-and-claim-it faith confessions. I was desperate for love and approval and in the absence of proper teaching on grace – I just looked to performance and achievement. I saw faith as being the key to unlocking the power of God that I needed in order to be happy, satisfied and accepted.

I think if Hagin would have been given the same revelation of grace that Joseph Prince has been given today – it is likely that Hagin would have been driven out of the church for sure and labelled a crank.

Conclusion

Biblical prosperity is a very tricky subject – there needs to be a balance and I believe that extravagant testimonies, such as that of Olivia Lum, need to be seen as exceptional and not typical. I believe that the main reason behind such testimonies is to serve to take the limits off God. So many times we try to figure God out, anticipate His next move, and to define the boundaries of what we can or can’t have, or what we can or can’t do. It is so easy to quote a testimony like that of Olivia Lum and then attempt to make some sort of generic “template” out of it; a rule, principal or formula that anyone can follow in order to achieve instantaneous, and predictable, success.

Yes, I do believe that God’s intention is that we have our needs met, and even that we can enjoy prosperity – but there is a difference between needs and wants. A lot of people still look to financial prosperity as a means of offsetting other unmet needs in their life, such as a sense of approval and security – things that only a well-established relationship with Christ can fulfil.

I foresee the grace revolution as being a rather slow process as old religious mindsets give way to the message of pure grace. I believe that the message of tithing will probably be the last bastion of Christian legalism to fall. Why? Well because it involves money of course!

What Grace Preachers Say About Tithing

Joseph Prince is the only grace preacher I know of who still teaches that we should tithe. But he does add that we should give from a heart of love and not give out of obligation. But I think that a lot of Christians want to give out of love - but end up giving out of fear.

It does seem like a noble concept at first, but when people tithe for years and nothing significant happens as a result, the inevitable result is one of disappointment. Feelings of guilt can also arise from teaching on tithing because when a person fails to experience all of the wonderful promises that were made to him by a pastor or evangelist – it causes the Christian to wonder what he did wrong or what he is missing: is it a lack of faith? Do I have to give more? Is there sin in my life? And so on.

First of all, we really need to get beyond this fear associated with tithing. To do this, we need to hear teaching that shows that tithing is an Old Testament concept and that Jesus has bore the curse of the law.

I recommend Bertie Brits' teaching on the subject of tithing. Bertie's teaching is available for free download on his website http://www.dynamicministries.com I particularly recommend the teaching "Money on the Cross" and "Hermanus Leadership Conference". But there are various other teachings by Bertie in which he touches on this subject. Basically, Bertie argues that if we can attribute healing and salvation and everything else in Christ to the cross - why not prosperity and finances?

Steve McVey also asserts in his "101 Lies Told in Church" series of short videos, that we do not need to tithe. See Lie #66 You Will Be Blessed Because You Tithe.

Grace preacher Andrew Wommack also teaches that we should not tithe out of compulsion and that God will bless you even if you don't. See the Financial Stewardship series, which can be downloaded for free on his website. This teaching series is a little confusing because in the first MP3 (and perhaps part of the second), Andrew says that we don't need to tithe, but then in the subsequent MP3s in the series, he says that we should tithe.

My personal belief is that our relationship with God should never be out of fear, or out of lust for that matter. What ultimately determines the quality of our life is how much we know we are accepted and loved by God, and loving others from that place of acceptance. We should never see our prosperity as depending on a rule we should keep or an obligation we should fulfil. Inevitably, it’s all about having a sense of security and knowing that we are blessed and accepted by God through faith in Christ, not in any kind of religious obligation that we need to keep.

Is Faith a Ticket to Health and Wealth?

Speaking from experience, you'll find that many people have come into grace only as the result of religious self-effort. This also incorporates Word of Faith and all the other extremes that came out of the charismatic movement. Joseph Prince cites Kenneth E. Hagin (Word of Faith) as being one of his main Bible teachers.

I have found that many people come to Christianity as a last resort and because they have unmet needs. I see it as gears: you start off with rules, and then move onto works and then move onto pursuing faith principles and formulas as a means of making God bless them how they want and when they want.

Sure, God wants us to be well and to meet our needs, but life can condition the subconscious mind to believe that something external to Christ and the love of God - can make you happy. This typically shows itself in the pursuit of people, power and possessions. The Word of Faith teaching can be seen as being the key to getting everything that a person needs.

Many believers have found after years of frustration and trying to repeat Bible verses - which WOF simply does not work. If declaring verses of scripture accompanies blessings, then it is the expression of a heart that knows the love of God and is secure in Christ. Affirmations are not a formula to get what you want from God.

Some believers, feeling cheated by misleading and extreme teaching, have gone to extremes in the other direction: they have completely rejected any teaching that asserts the believers right to healing and financial prosperity.

I tend to "pitch my tent" as it were, somewhere in the middle of these extremes: I believe that God still heals today and that He will meet our needs - but I don't believe that Christians can demand what they want from God; neither can they expect extravagant blessings and miracles. I have also noticed that the concept of wealth to someone living in a wealthy country, such as a member of the G7* group of countries, is completely different to the concept of wealth on a worldwide scale. The Bible speaks of vats overflowing with wine and bumper harvests of crops - not driving expensive sports cars, living in mansions and aspiring to be a member of the board of directors in your place of work.

Perhaps God does want to bless you extravagantly – He did with Solomon. But it is not our place to demand such things. Another factor to consider is that it often takes time to manifest certain things: it takes time and effort to build a career, business, relationship or ministry.

Jesus Himself said to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things would be added unto you (Matt. 6:33). He did not say to seek righteousness first, and then seek material provision. No, He said to seek after righteousness. Why is this so? I believe it is because knowing that we are right with God, loved by Him just the way that we are, and brings a sense of security that:

• Subdues the selfish flesh nature, bringing peace and mental clarity.
• Eliminates the desire for those things we once thought we need in order to be happy.
• Brings a sense of complete trust in God, that He will meet your needs, regardless of circumstances past and present.

There are many Christians who attempt to "believe God" for things, when they have no foundation of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). Nowhere in scripture does it say to believe God for "things" - only to believe in a person - Jesus Christ.

Bertie Brits' teaching is centred strongly on this concept of believing (trusting) in Jesus, not things. I find Bertie’s preaching refreshing after ten years or so of frustration with Word of Faith teaching. It really is so much simpler and less time consuming to believe (trust) in Jesus, rather than trying to claim promises, sow seed and all of the things associated with “believing God” for things. Everything from healing to financial provision comes to us based on our being persuaded of God's love for us - that is why we are told to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

* The G7 countries are: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States.