Defining Moments

Health, Wealth and Wisdom

Most of the prayer requests that come to us here at Living Oaks have to do with issues concerning health or financial needs. That’s the case in most any church. When you listen to political candidates debating the major issues for our country, the bulk of it has to do with healthcare and the economy. Voters care about those things. If we could solve health and wealth concerns on a personal and national level, it seems that it would make life much easier, doesn’t it? Imagine a world without poverty, sickness or disease.

Along with the ever-present worries about physical and financial wellbeing come the opportunists; those who offer shortcuts and miraculous remedies for both areas of concern. Cable channels are replete with infomercials about how you can become rich with very little effort, or investment of time. (Of course, you’re expected to invest some money to learn their secrets, but it’s broken down into several easy, affordable payments of something ending in $...99!)

Everything from exercise contraptions to juice machines to vitamins and elixirs are available to strengthen your run-down body, help you lose weight and guarantee bolstered energy and general health. After all, what good is all that easy money from your no-down-payment properties, new at-home business or glorified pyramid scheme, if you’re too sick, weak or out of shape to spend it?

If a candidate for office could promise—if elected, of course—health and wealth for everyone, he or she would be a shoe-in. By the same token any product that could guarantee to remedy all financial and/or medical woes would enjoy a limitless market. So, then doesn’t it make sense that if you are trying to sell religion, you offer the same benefits?

If your only exposure to Christianity was what can be seen most hours of the day on the most prominent Christian TV channels, you would have to conclude that the message of the Bible amounts to one big infomercial, offering health, wealth and the positive mental attitude you need to make you a good candidate for receiving those things.

The Bible does have much to say about physical health and financial wealth. But those are not even close to the most important topics in Scripture. The true message of Christianity has little to do with having material affluence or being devoid of disease. But you wouldn’t know that if your only exposure to Christianity was TV and some of the bestselling books by Christian authors.

In his book Christianity in Crisis, Hank Hanegraaff, “The Bible Answer Man” (who will be joining us to speak at our Get a Clue conference in September) writes, “We must shift from perceiving God as a means to an end to recognizing that He is the end. We must shift from a theology based on temporary perspectives to one based on eternal perspectives.” That’s very true; but what about those temporary things? Do they matter at all? Of course they do.

God cares about your health and your financial situation. He cares enough to give us sound biblical principles to live life with a healthy balance in those areas. Does the Bible teach, as one preacher claims, that “…if the Word of God is in our life, there will be health, there will be healing… There will be no sickness for the saint of God”? Or as another asserts, Jesus “wore designer clothes”? Not quite.

“By humility and the fear of the Lord
Are riches and honor and life”
─Proverbs 22:4 nkjv