"If you're living your best life now, you're headed for hell." ~ Shai Linne
With all due respect to the toothy one, I side with Shai.
Oh I know what Mister (never Pastor) Osteen is trying to say. And part of me agrees. If you are in Christ, your life should be amazing. But somehow I think he and I (and Paul, and Peter, and Jesus, and...) disagree on just what it means to have an amazing life.
Jesus did not die on a cross to give you a bigger house.
Jesus did not die on a cross to give you a nicer car.
And no, Jesus did not die on the cross to give anyone a toothier smile.
Conversely, Jesus didn't die on the cross to just give us heaven, though that seems to be the only blessing most of us ever hear about.
Jesus said, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10
Paul wrote, "But God...made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved" Ephesians 2:4
Peter wrote, "If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." 1 Peter 4:14
Note: none of these men had wonderful, wealthy lives. Jesus' life is well attested to, and it was a life of poverty and loneliness, ending with a tortuous death as a penalty for others' sins.
Paul says himself that, "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches."
And tradition holds that Peter was crucified for his faith and preaching, and suffered so in an upside-down position, holding that he was unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord.
If our best life now means some sort of comfort or material blessings, surely Jesus, Paul, and Peter missed something. But if we're to believe, as they taught, that our best life now is a relationship with God that can only be had through faith in Jesus Christ, and that that relationship will stand no matter what hardships we might face, then let's stop swallowing this nonsense that God wants us to be happy (unless we define happiness as closeness to Him.)
You really can know your best life now. And believe it or not it's so much better than the world can imagine!
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