As promised, here is session #2 of the 2010 Christless Christianity Conference. In this must see video (entitled: "Becoming a Better You"), pastor John MacArthur exposes a common but aberrant view of the Christian life, namely that God desires for us to experience our best life in this world. Borrowing conveniently from mainstream word-faith proponent Joel Osteen's book, Your Best Life Now, MacArthur skillfully points out that Satan's messengers most often appeal to what the unregenerate heart most desperately wants . . . to have God on their own terms and for Him to enable them to become successful according to the standards of this world. Missing in Osteen's "theology" is the biblical view of man as totally unable and totally unwilling to come to the true God apart from divine enablement through regeneration and faith. This is a common error in the contemporary church that we will be addressing comprehensibly at Gospel Polemics in the near future. In short, without a biblical Anthropology (study of man) it is impossible to come to an orthodox Soteriology (study of salvation).
The remedy for Osteen's fallacy by MacArthur is skillful bible exposition from 1 Peter 1:3-5. Peter addresses persecuted and dispersed Jewish believers who are not experiencing their best lives now! These troubled believers are encouraged to fix their minds on the eternal, enduring, and undefiled inheritance that Jesus purchased for them and to abide in the "living hope" of future glory in heaven!
This message by MacArthur at Christless Christianity 2010 begs the questions: When we experience inevitable suffering and disappointment in this life, does that make us cling more deeply to the world? Or do our trials remind us that our best life is yet future in the glory of our Father's kingdom? Is our primary view of Christianity one in which God makes good people better? Or do we stand amazed that God's mercy and grace revealed in Christ reaches and transforms even poor, miserable, helpless, spiritually bankrupt rebels such as us?
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