The Real Deal

            I will start with describing the Prosperity Gospel* and then move into this concept of continuously and increasingly knowing God. The Prosperity Gospel flips the role of God and things...creator and created. It flips the roles in such a way that God becomes the means by which we acquire things making things the all-inclusive end. This completely backward teaching is the Prosperity Gospel. People all over the world are being deceived.

• "I'll have your Jesus if he will give me food on the table!" 
• "I'll have your Jesus if he is how I can finally get that BMW!" 
• "Oh, and I don't get to go to Hell? Perfect!" 

God must be the end and not the means. We use things as a means to get to Him. For example, money. We [can] use money to buy a Bible (to get close to Him) instead of using God as a means to money. 

• "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mat. 13:44)

          Knowing God

          Knowing God is the greatest gift God gives us. Knowing His glory, His love, His justice, His everything. Remember that "for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). To keep in context of this work as a whole, we will focus on the glory of God, an end toward which things work. 

           The Death of Lazarus

           Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ²It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. ³So the sisters sent to him, saying, "Lord, he whom you love is ill."⁴But when Jesus heard it he said, "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." (John 11:1-4)

          Even death  is used as a means to glorify God. Remember Romans 8:28. Instead of preventing Lazarus' death God planned this for them who loved Him to get more of Him so that "the Son of God may be glorified through it." Nothing is off-limits for God.


           Knowing God II


           Knowing God is knowing the ultimate, infinite being. Nothing compares - not knowing business, knowing money, knowing social dynamics, or anything else! Therefore, knowing God is the ultimate gift. So much so, that "He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

• "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:54)

*Any teaching that has another word in front of the word, "Gospel", is no longer the Gospel.