Review: Your Best Life Now, Part One

This review only covers the first 4 chapters.  I’ll interact with additional chapters in the days to come.  But it isn’t looking pretty.

Obviously millions of people have read Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen.  It enjoys recommendations from people who should know better, but apparently don’t.  I am reading it, and will go through my problems with this fictional theology.  I use that term because what I found was something other than biblical notions of faith and grace. 

I found Mr. Osteen repeatedly ignoring the context and original meaning of Scriptural texts to support his beliefs (see the chart below).  I did not hear the voice of God, but rather the voice of the Whore of Babylon.  That sounds extreme, I know.  But I did not hear the call to “pick up your cross, deny yourself daily, and follow Jesus.”  I heard the voice of the seductress saying “all this could be yours.” 

This book is many things, but one of them would be a rejection of the instruction we find in Hebrews 11-12.  Joel teaches an over-realized eschatology- heaven now, if you just believe.  Therefore, miracles are normalized, expected to happen to you all the time.  But there does not seem to be any biblical notion of salvation.

 

This is clear from his understanding of faith.  The Bible sees faith as trusting God to do what He says He will do, and that what He says is true is in fact true.  For Joel, faith is believing that what you want to happen will happen.  Faith becomes trusting God to accomplish YOUR agenda, rather than His eternal purposes.  That is a monumental shift.  He is redefining biblical terminology, and creating a perversion of Christianity.

 

He is also redefining our problem.  Like Robert Schuller, he puts it on our low self-esteem.  We sell ourselves short, Osteen says.  We need to picture success.  He does not point out that in so doing, we are often serving one of our idols.  Our problem is that we are sinners.  So some of us refuse to risk because we worship comfort and security.  Others lack wisdom and love money so they continually take bad risks or otherwise continually sabotage success.  We don’t need to merely change our thinking, or view of ourselves.  We need to be saved from our idolatry and its penalty.

 

Another problem I encountered was that our faith, not God, was determinative regarding our future.  “God is limited only by our lack of faith.”  In this way of thinking, God really isn’t in control- you are.  Your faith or unbelief determine what God can and cannot do.

Text	Meaning in Context	Joel’s (Ab)use
Ephesians 2:7	Grace is given to deliver us from the penalty, power, and presence of sin.	Grace is given to achieve YOUR dreams.
Matthew 9:17	The parallel text in Luke 5 is helpful for understanding this idea of the new wineskins.  Jesus says the old wine is better.  The ‘new wine’ of the Pharisees teaching had destroyed biblical faith.	You need to change how you think, having a bigger picture of God and bigger expectations.  He wants you to have “new wine.”
Isaiah 43:19	The new thing is the arrival of Messiah who will save His people from their sins.	“God is always ready to do new things in our lives.  He’s trying to promote us, to increase us, to give us more.”
Mark 9:23	The man was to believe that God could deliver his son from demons.	We are to believe God will do what we want Him to do.
Colossians 3:2	Paul tells us that since we have been raised with Christ, we are to set our minds on things in heaven, NOT earthly things.	Osteen tells us to set our minds on positive earthly things.  Expect to have a great day (forget the sin & misery that fill the world).
Hebrews 11:1	Faith is certainty that God will keep His promises.	Faith is confident expectancy of God’s favor in your earthly affairs (promotions, health).
Matthew 9:29	Jesus healed those who believed He could.	“Have what your faith expects.”  He makes a specific instance normative.
2 Kings 2:9	A double portion refers to the inheritance of the firstborn son, who got twice as much as the other sons.	“I want to be twice as powerful, twice as strong, twice as blessed.  I want to see twice as many miracles.”  He misrepresents Elisha’s request.
Proverbs 13:20	We benefit if we listen and apply the wisdom of others.	To be successful, spend time with successful people.
2 Corinthians 10:4	Strongholds are things that set themselves up against the knowledge of God and promote disobedience.	Strongholds are “wrong thinking patterns that keeps us imprisoned in defeat”, not in sin but lack of success.
Isaiah 61:7	This is a promise of the greatness of the restoration that will follow repentance.	If you change your negative attitude, God will pay you back double what you lost because of it.  It is not about turning from sin, but expecting good things instead of bad things.
Isaiah 54:2	The restoration will be so great- God’s people will increase greatly and cover the earth.	He individualizes it to mean your personal possessions will multiply.