The irony of Prosperity

 I wonder how prosperity gospel preachers can miss the connection between these two ideas: the cross, and suffering. They are one and the same. We are called to take up our cross, and this is no light matter. This doesn't sound like a life of ease and financial buffering in which we're sure we live in abundance every year. How can the cross, a bloody, splintery symbol of suffering, be turned into this idea of smug self-satisfaction that drives us to focus on us, our wealth, our happiness? It's the CROSS! Jesus bled on it! He died on it! He didn't spend his life chillin' around!

So if what you stand for is yourself, and that's all you care about, then rip that cross off your neck and hang a TWINKIE there. Live your life without ever really carrying the cross... I dare you. Jesus didn't die so that you could sit there, self-indulge, and whine about what you don't have in this temporary world. 

And by the way... to some degree, this applies to everyone, myself included, because none of us are completely righteous of heart. I'm feeling guilty as I write this, because I know that I don't carry the cross like I should. But I am not judged by my deeds, but by what's in my heart... and the same goes for you. And that is good news indeed.