From the Desk
People say dumb things all the time. Fortunately, for most of us, those words are often quickly forgotten. But for Victoria Osteen, that has not
been the case.
While not all Christians think Osteen’s words in an August sermon at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, were inappropriate, she has definitely provoked harsh responses, ranging from tweets to personal blogs and even coverage from national media outlets.
During her address to the church, Osteen tried to encourage the congregation by talking about reasons for Christians to obey and worship God.
“When we obey God, we’re not doing it for God — I mean, that’s one way to look at it,” Osteen said. “We’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. That’s the thing that gives him the greatest joy this morning. So, I want you to know this morning, just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship him, you’re not doing it for God, really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy.”
It is true that God takes delight in seeing us, his creation, happy. But the truth in Osteen’s statement ends there.
The rest of Osteen’s monologue encourages a self-centered view of God. According to her address, Christians should be worshipping and obeying God for their own gain rather than to glorify him. Osteen espouses a philosophy of giving to God in order to merely get something in return.
Although her words were far from orthodox, I honestly do not think Osteen aimed to reveal some new doctrine to that congregation. I do not think she wanted to go against the traditions of the Christian church. I do not think she wanted to offend anyone. I think Osteen wanted only to reframe worship and obedience in order to encourage more Christians to do those things.
If it becomes about what we can gain, why not do those things?
Unfortunately, if we are completely honest, I think we would do a lot more things if we were able to directly
benefit from those actions.
Whether she meant to use those particular words or not, I believe Osteen was actually pretty clever in her attempt to get more people to worship and obey. Osteen appealed to prideful human nature with her reasoning.
However, while I give Osteen credit for saying all the right things to advance her goals, her focus is completely off. Osteen focused on our gratification, not on God.
As Christians, we are made to worship God because he deserves it, not because we feel better about ourselves when we sing or praise him. We are to obey him because he commands it, not because we become happy when we do something good.
Once worship becomes about us and what we can get out of it, we are no longer worshipping. We are merely using the act as the coin necessary to get good feelings of happiness out of a cosmic vending machine.
Although Osteen made an argument for worship that is probably appealing to many people, I think I will stick with obeying and worshipping my God because his word tells me to, because he deserves it and because he has given me much more than temporary happiness.