God Wants Me to be Happy

Some time ago Victoria Osteen, the wife of Mega-church pastor Joel Osteen made a STAGGERING claim from the pulpit:

Based on that clip I created the following poster or Meme:

Upon seeing this meme, a reader  on Facebook asked me:

"Are you on a witch hunt?"

It's a fair  question which deserves an answer, to which I reply in an open letter, in case other readers had the same thoughts. Here is my reply:

Am I on a witch hunt? That would depend solely on your point of view as to WHICH paradigm of "Grace" you choose to apply. You see, if you approach grace as many do; from a paradigm that trains you to believe that loving grace means we must accept EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that someone says, as long as they say it in, "Jesus Name," then yes, by THAT paradigm, you would consider me to be on a witch hunt. If you approach grace from a paradigm that tells you that in order to be loving and gracious, one must tolerate and indulge sin, and unrighteousness, because being loving and gracious means we must accept an tolerate everyone and everything, no matter how unbiblical it is, then yes, by THAT definition, I would be on a witch hunt; because my comment points out grievous error, and doesn't give you warm fuzzy huggable feelings. If it doesn't feel NICE, therefore, it can't be Christian, according to how many people have re-defined what that means.

On the other hand, if you approach and you define love and grace from a truly BIBLICAL paradigm, then there is NO WAY that I would be on a witch hunt, because the statements I made are in fact TRUE; and love does not rejoice in iniquity, but it rejoices with the TRUTH, (1 Corinthians 13:6).

NOWHERE in Scripture does it teach that God's ultimate joy is to see us be happy. That's false teaching and it makes it harder for us to become truly effective disciples. That's why that paradigm MUST be challenged, and exposed, for the darkness that it truly is, (Ephesians 5:11).

His ultimate objective is to see us transformed, and conformed into the image, the likeness and the character of His Son Jesus Christ, (Yeshua the Messiah); THAT IS His ultimate Joy. That's HIS Goal (Ephesians 4:11-15; Romans 8:29). His ultimate goal is to transform the church into a proper Bride for His Son. THAT is HIS goal, (Ephesians 5:27). His ultimate joy is that we would worship HIM in Spirit and in TRUTH (John 4:23-24). THAT is what the Father SEEKS. God's goal for us is that we would TRULY OVERCOME the world, and NOT conform to the world, (Romans 12:1-2; Revelation 21:7).THAT is God's ULTIMATE Joy. THAT is God's ULTIMATE Goal. Our being, "Happy," takes a far DISTANT second place AFTER those goals in God's priorities.

She may have been caught up in the excitement of the moment, but when Mrs. Osteen declared what she did, she spoke AGAINST a WHOLE LOT of Scripture, and based on how she defined "God's greatest Joy" being about making us happy, she just made it a lot HARDER for people in her congregation to accept, to tolerate, and to submit to God's CORRECTION in their lives, by making happiness the expectation instead of making God's Character and His Righteousness the expectation. She planted the seed that if we don't feel happy about whatever is going on in our lives, then it surely must not be of God. That is a destructive heresy to any up and coming disciple who hears and digests those words; and who builds their expectations about God based on those words.

IF God can reach HIS stated BIBLICAL goals in our lives by allowing us some happiness, He will CERTAINLY do that. 

At the same time, IF reaching HIS stated goals requires His correcting us, His spanking us, and His breaking us in some areas; IF reaching HIS stated goals requires Him to make us very decidedly NOT HAPPY, he will do that as well, and that is PERFECTLY RIGHT for Him to do that as our Father,and we should NOT build contrary expectations to that, (Hebrews 12:1-7), because His greatest Joy is our character, NOT our happiness. That's a CRITICAL distinction we don't want to miss, (Isaiah 5:20-24; Isaiah 55:7-9).That's WHY making these clear distinctions matters so much, because they create expectations within us, which will either power or they can pollute and poison our faith. 

Brother Michel Lankford