Chapter 10
The Death of the Difference

Jesus has finally come to the end of His time here on earth with His disciples and He begins to speak very openly. I am going up to Jerusalem to suffer at the hands of the Jewish leaders, to be killed and then to be raised again on the third day.

Peter’s reaction to this distressing news is to take Jesus and begin to set Him straight:

Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee, says Peter.

The this to which Peter takes such great exception is the suffering and death of which Jesus has just now plainly spoken for the first time ever.

But Jesus’ reaction to Peter’s words shocks everyone. He looks Peter straight in the eye and says, Get thee behind me, Satan.

That is an astonishing thing for Jesus to say. What was the great offense in the words of Peter? Had he not simply articulated that which every man wants most for himself and those that he loves? To live and not die?

What more noble and universally accepted desire could any man ever express for himself or another? Wherein was Peter’s great sin? What could possibly have caused Jesus to react in such a violent way so as to address Peter as though he were speaking directly to Satan himself ?

Would it not have been more appropriate for the kind and caring Jesus to have said something like, Peter, I can see that among all the disciples that follow me, you are the one who loves me the most. No one else comes even close to showing such a great and caring concern for me as you. And though I appreciate the ardent expression of love contained in these words you’ve spoken to me, I’ve got a job to do, and I must be about my Father’s business. But I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your obvious love and concern.

Instead, Jesus turns to Peter and hurls His words directly into his teeth: Thou art an offence unto me.

The word offence, skandalon in the Greek, described a “hunter’s bent-stick snare,” used for trapping his prey.

You have set a baited hunter’s snare, says Jesus to Peter, to entrap Me.

What a strange thing to say. In what way were Peter’s words a “hunter’s snare” for Jesus Himself?

Peter’s offence, his trap, according to Jesus, lies in the fact that he savourest the things of man and not the things that be of God. “To savour,” phroneo, is “to set the affection upon, or to desire and approve of something or someone.”

And on one level, Jesus’ rebuke of Peter makes perfect sense. Unless Jesus dies, the world is forever lost in its sin. And that’s altogether understandable.

But the telling moment in this passage occurs immediately after the rebuke, when Jesus turns to his disciples and explains the real and shocking reason why He has rebuked Peter at all.

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

That was the real shocking revelation: it’s not just Me that has a cross, declares Jesus. You have a cross, as well. And it’s not just Me that has to die. If you would come after me, you must die as well. And that news would have left every disciple utterly astonished!

Jesus’ cross might have been anticipated. Your cross could not possibly have been. The idea that Christ must die for the sins of the world, though tragic in the disciples’ eyes at that moment, will at least later be, in light of the greater good, understandable, acceptable, and even desirable.

The idea that you must die with Him is neither understandable nor acceptable. And not in the least bit desirable. Not now. Not later. Not ever.

Nevertheless, according to the words of Jesus Himself, the cross is the one single inescapable requirement for every man, any man, and all men who would desire to come after Him. No cross, no following Christ; the cross is the only place to which Jesus is going.

Moses had once stood on the mountain and cried, Choose life.

But now, astonishingly, in an entire universe away from what we would ever have expected, Jesus stands in the desert and cries, Choose death.

But because we have not prepared ourselves to anticipate and embrace the immeasurable-by-an-entire-universe of difference that lies between every thought of His and every thought of ours, we still hear Moses – even in the plainly spoken words of Jesus – and we mistakenly assume that Jesus must also be saying what Moses said: Choose life.

But My thoughts are not your thoughts, says God. Not one. Not ever. Not even close. No exceptions.

Choose death, says Jesus. Not life.

But that’s probably not even close to what your pastor tells you to choose.

Or what your favorite TV preacher tells you to choose.

Or what any of your church friends tell you to choose.

Or even what you tell yourself to choose.

But that doesn’t seem to bother Jesus in the least.

Because according to Him – that’s still – exactly and only – what God Himself tells you to choose.

There has never been another place, anywhere or anytime, where God’s thoughts actually appear farther away from your own thoughts than right here. Right here, in these very words of Jesus.

Nothing – and I mean nothing in the entire universe – could be further from what you would have expected or desired Jesus to say.

But in responding to the call of Christ to take up your cross and follow Him, the very idea that you would somehow, someway, hear anything other than Jesus saying Choose death is difficult to imagine.

Moses’ call to “choose life” is nowhere to be found in these words of Jesus. That call is for another people, at another time, in another place, under another contract, through another prophet, for another purpose altogether. An entire universe away from these words:

This prophet, the One of Whom Moses himself prophesied, the One which every soul must now hear or be destroyed, declares with no uncertainty whatsoever that if you would follow Him, you must choose death.

The invitation to take up your cross and die with Him simply could not be more clear.

And even the mere suggestion, even the very smallest hint, that out of this clear call of Jesus to choose death, you would somehow instead hear Him calling you to choose “your best life now” – is so utterly unimaginable, so far from the correct side of the universe, as to be beyond comprehension.

When you attempt to overlay the unambiguously clear call of Jesus to follow Him to suffering and death with the utterly contradictory notion of comfort and prosperity, the only word that comes to mind is “surreal:” the totally irrational juxtaposition of images.

Jesus says, If you choose to follow me, not only will you not find “your best life now,” you will find instead, “no life now.”

In this world, the call to follow Jesus is never a call to life. It is, always and only, a call to death.

The so-called prosperity gospel, with its “your best life now” message, is the choose life message of Moses. It’s not even from the same side of the universe as the choose death message of Jesus. That’s why its promises are all found in the words of Moses, and none are found in the words of Jesus. But last time I checked, it was Jesus, by Moses’ own insistence, Who was presently speaking for God in all things. Jesus is that prophet, not Moses, Whom you must hear or be destroyed from among the people.

Part of the confusion of the prosperity movement can be traced to the fact that its proponents give equal weight to the words of Moses and the words of Jesus. And oftentimes they give even greater weight to those of Moses.

But the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that’s an unimaginably big mistake.

He says that God did indeed speak in past times to the fathers by prophets like Moses, but now, He speaks exclusively by His Son. And then he begins to detail the résumé of the only One through Whom God is now speaking, to set what the Son says distinctly apart from what anyone else has ever said before.

This One, he says, is unimaginably different than any other. And therefore His words are unimaginably different than any other’s words. And from the very first verse, he begins to lay out his case for comparison:

• This One has been appointed heir of all things. Moses hasn’t.

• This One is He by Whom God made the worlds. Moses isn’t.

• This One is the very brightness of the glory of God. Moses isn’t.

• This One is the express image of God’s person. Moses isn’t.

• This One upholds all things by His own word. Moses doesn’t.

• This One Himself purged our sins. Moses didn’t.

• This One is seated at the right hand of God. Moses isn’t.

• This One is the only begotten of God Himself. Moses isn’t.

• This One is worshiped by all the angels. Moses isn’t.

• This One sits on the eternal throne of God. Moses doesn’t.

• This One laid the very foundation of the world. Moses didn’t.

• This One made the heavens as well. Moses didn’t.

• This One will have all things put in subjection under His very feet. And no one else will. Not even Moses. (Hebrews 1–2)

There is no comparison, not by an entire universe of difference, between what this One says and what anyone else has ever said before. Not even Moses.

Don’t tell me you already knew what Jesus would say before He said it. Don’t tell me you already agreed with what Jesus would say before He spoke. Don’t tell me Jesus just restated the same things others had said, or simply deepened them a little in their meaning. Don’t tell me the old has equal weight with the new. Don’t tell me that one should listen to the prophets and kings of old, who attempted to hear and see these things but failed, with the same carefulness that one listens to Jesus and His apostles.

The words of Christ supersede all others. The words of the New Covenant supersede the words of the Old. Don’t trot out the prophets or the kings and think their words are as weighty as the Lord’s and His apostles’. God has now, not then, spoken unto us by his Son. And the Son is unlike any other.

God says His thoughts are not your thoughts. But they are Christ’s thoughts. And how shall we escape, the writer of Hebrews asks, if we fail to hear this One Who now not only speaks for God, but speaks as God?

If failing to heed the word spoken through Moses in the law brought utter destruction at that time, then how much worse will it be if you fail to heed the word of this unimaginably superior One Who is speaking now?

“Listen closer,” he says, to the things that this One says. Not the same. And certainly, God forbid, not less.

Don’t weigh Christ’s words in the balance with anyone else’s words and find them to be of equal weight. And don’t let anyone else do that for you either. They’re not equal. They were never equal. All the other words were merely the shadow. This is the very Son that casts the shadow.

Give the more earnest heed, pissoteros, “more superabundantly,” to the words of Christ and His apostles than to the words that God spoke before through anyone else. Including Moses.

The one who spoke from earth is Moses. He speaks only from the Old Contract. He speaks only of this life and the prosperity and blessings of this world. His promised land is here. Now. In this life and in this world. That word shook the earth.

The One Who speaks from heaven is Jesus. He speaks only from the New Contract. He also speaks about life and prosperity and blessings as well, but only for the next life. His promised land is not here. And it’s not now. His promised land is heaven. And it is yet to come. This word shakes both the earth and the heaven.

The message about living and life is only from Moses. The message about suffering and death is only from Jesus. And the message of suffering and death is precisely an entire immeasurable universe away from the message of “your best life now.”

But, no matter what you might think about the prosperity gospel of “your best life now,” in my opinion, it’s not really what you think it is at all. In fact, I don’t think you could possibly, as yet, fully appreciate what it really is.

If you think it’s great, as multiplied hundreds of millions of people around the world obviously do, it’s not what you think it is at all. If you think it’s terrible, like a few might (I think there were about four last time I counted) it’s still not what you think it is at all.

Personally, I think the “your best life now” message is really what you would never have imagined that it is. And personally, I think it’s absolutely beyond brilliant.

But before I tell you what I think the “your best life now” message really is, let me tell you what I think it’s not.

First of all, I think it’s not a new idea. In fact, I think it’s a really old idea. In fact, among ideas of this particular kind, I think it’s actually the very oldest of them all.

Second, I think it’s not funny. As in, “not to be laughed at.” Not to be joked about. And not to be not taken seriously. Not even in the least. Most of its other critics (all two of them) consider it to be so theologically näive and spiritually lightweight that it has become an easy target for those who consider themselves to be the more ‘spiritually enlightened’ among us.

And third, I think it’s not going away. I think it will only get bigger. Because it works. Better than you could ever imagine.

So what is it?

First of all, no matter how spiritually astute you think you are, I think the “your best life now” message is more theologically sophisticated than anything you have ever seen before. Anything. Ever. Without exception.

Second, I think it’s about as far from being spiritually lightweight as you are from the absolute end of the universe.

And third, I think it’s the only idea, in the entire history of all ideas, that ever made God Himself sweat.

Let me explain: in the garden of Eden, when the serpent said to Eve, Ye shall not surely die, we who ‘listened’ heard it as though the serpent were making a full-frontal assault on God and His word.

We ‘heard’ in its content that what he said was an utter and absolute contradiction to exactly what God had just said.

And we assumed, mistakenly so, I think, that Eve heard it the same way we did. But what we didn’t realize was just how subtle the serpent really was.

I believe that we accurately heard what he said, but missed entirely how he said it.

Listen carefully: the serpent crafted his approach to Eve so wisely and so wonderfully that the words Ye shall not surely die came out of his mouth not as an affront to God – not even as an utter contradiction to what God had just said – but rather as the very warmest, most heartfelt, and most uplifting words of encouragement that one who had feared that she might just die had ever heard before.

To Eve, these words weren’t against anybody. These words were for somebody. These words were for Eve herself. And to her, these words were the very words of life.

These were the most uplifting and encouraging words that Eve had ever heard before: Eve, Ye shall not surely die. Like the patient who has been told that he is terminally ill, having the smiling doctor stand beside his bed and warmly say, “I’ve got some great news: Ye shall not surely die.”

No, Peter did not say to Jesus, Ye shall not surely die, as the serpent had said to Eve in the garden.

He just said the very same thing in different words: Be it [that is, death and its attendant sufferings] far from thee. This shall not be unto thee.

In other words, Ye shall not surely die.

And can you ‘hear’ Peter as he says those words to Jesus? He’s not saying them to contradict Jesus. He’s saying those words to comfort Jesus. And when he speaks, his eyes are full of the most loving care, and his voice is full of the deepest concern that you could ever have even imagined. Peter says those words to console and to encourage Jesus.

For Peter, these are the most loving words he has ever spoken to anyone in his life.

And that’s exactly the message of the prosperity gospel.

Same message, different messenger. Once in the mouth of the serpent, then in the mouth of Peter, and now in the mouths of the smiling prosperity prophets.

All bringing the same exciting, warm and wonderful, soul-consoling and encouraging news. All speaking with the very same care and concern of those who have only your very best interest at heart:

“Great news. Ye shall not surely die as you feared you might. Put away all those negative thoughts of suffering and death. Don’t even think about them any more. You can have your best life now and don’t let anybody tell you you can’t. God doesn’t want you to suffer. Not even a little bit. Suffering, poverty, sickness, discomfort, lack of any kind, Be it far from thee. Don’t even think about that cross and all its pain. This shall not be unto thee. Ye shall not surely die.”

And that’s what Peter said to Jesus.

And that message touches me, and touches you – and here’s the most astonishing thing of all – it even touches Jesus – at precisely our deepest level of concern about life. And it answers all our fears with exactly the words that we desperately wanted to hear God to say to us:

“That old cross is against you,” says “your best life now.” “Life and prosperity are for you. Everything bad that you’ve ever imagined might come to pass? Be it far from thee. This shall not be unto thee. Ye shall not surely die.”

Does God want you to live? “Of course He does,” they answer with a warm and assuring smile. “In this life, God doesn’t want you to bear a cross. He wants you to wear the most wonderful crown.”

And we wonder why the people who hear that gracious message rejoice and glorify God for such wondrous words of consolation.

Ye shall not surely die. Now that’s great news.

But Jesus didn’t even hear Peter speaking. He heard someone else speaking through Peter. Jesus was the only One Who recognized who was really making that gracious offer. And Jesus was the only One Who recognized that this offer was the ‘baited bent-stick snare,’ set to entrap His soul and the souls of all those disciples who were trying to decide if they would follow Him.

Because Jesus was the only One Who recognized that, in this life, you cannot have “your best life now” and also die on a cross.

You cannot live and die.

It is an offence, a trapper’s baited snare, declares Jesus to Peter, to savor and love the things that be of men, instead of savoring and loving the things that be of God.

And here, Jesus has explained openly to His disciples for the very first time what the things that be of God really look like.

And unfortunately, what they look least like is the choose life blessings of “your best life now.”

According to Jesus, the things that be of God not only don’t look like life and its blessings, they look like the precise opposite, an entire universe away from life and its blessings. The things that be of God look only like suffering and death.

There is no comfort awaiting Jesus in Jerusalem. There is no prosperity awaiting Him. There is not even any life itself awaiting Him. There is only the promise of suffering. And the promise of death. And the promise of a resurrection that lies only on the other side of the first two promises.

And according to Jesus, most astonishingly of all, there is only the same promise awaiting all those who would decide to follow Him.

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

As Jesus approached Jerusalem, Satan was aware that time was running out on eternity’s most cataclysmic spiritual event, the crucifixion of the Christ. God had cursed the serpent with those prophetic words:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

This was the woman’s seed. And this was the moment of the prophetic bruise. And this was Satan’s very last chance to stop Jesus.

Knowing that subtlety has always been the very essence of his nature, do you think that Satan held in reserve for this final moment his weakest argument, or his most persuasive?

The evidence that this is his very strongest argument against Christ can be seen in the very reaction of Jesus to the words spoken by Peter. The swiftness and strength of the rebuttal of Jesus is proportional to the force of the temptation that lies within the snare of Satan’s argument.

Never, never in the history of the world, have such words emanated from the mouth of God. This was simultaneously a rebuke and an utterly astonishing confession:

Thou art an offence, a snare, a hunters baited trap, unto Me, confesses Jesus.

Even unto Me.

There had been no other snare for Jesus. Not the temptation in the wilderness after forty days of fasting, not the angry mobs that He had faced in his own home town, and not the scribes and elders who were even then plotting His very death. None had been even remotely close to being a snare.

But this was indeed a snare: Thou art an offence unto me.

These words of Satan, spoken through the concerned and caring Peter, were those that Jesus took with Him into the garden of Gethsemane.

And unless you had stayed awake with Him through those awful hours – and unless you had heard the agonizing prayer like none ever before or after – once, twice, and yet an astonishing third time – from One who would do anything to live except disobey His Father’s will – and unless you had seen the very drops of blood that He had sweat over this snare – then you could not possibly understand the power, the near-overwhelming power of temptation even for God Himself in the flesh – that is here, in this word.

This is the snare. The agonizing snare. And there is none other beside it.

This awful cup of suffering and death that God is offering You, Be it far from thee. This shall not be unto thee. Thou shalt not surely die.

Peter’s words – Satan’s words – echoed in Jesus’ mind as He wrestled in the garden. This was the hunter’s snare. And if God Himself in the flesh sweat great drops of blood to keep from being taken in this snare, why would we wonder that mere men succumb so easily to the ensnaring power of “your best life now”?

The only call of the Father to Jesus was the call to suffer and die. There was no other call. Jesus had never been called to live. He had been born to die:

Jesus had been born to die. It was the will of God that He die. And you, as His disciple, have astonishingly been ‘re-born’ to die with Him as well. That is the will of God for you. In this world, just as there is no other will for Him, there is no other will for you.

Christ’s only escape from the baited snare is our only escape from the baited snare: to suffer and to die. Not my will to live, but Thy will be done, said Jesus to the Father. And we must echo the same. I come to do thy will O God, declares Jesus. And we must declare the same.

Is His the gift of life and prosperity or the gift of suffering and death?

In entering the kingdom, does He promise us pleasure or pain?

If we suffer, we will also be glorified together with Him.

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us (2 Timothy 2:12). If we suffer with Him and only if we suffer with Him shall we also reign with Him.

I die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). Not “I live daily.”

And to all of those wonderful “snare-escaping” promises of suffering and tribulation and death for both Christ and his disciples, the prophets of prosperity smile and say, Be it far from thee. This shall not be unto thee. “Those awful things are not the will of God for your life,” they assure you. Thou shalt not surely die.

And in so saying, they utterly contradict God Himself. “Your best life now” is the original, never-had-to-change-it-because-it-works-so-well baited snare for both Christ and every man who would follow Him to die.

That, however, is not even within an entire universe of what you’ve been told to believe.

And it’s probably not even close to what your pastor believes.

Or what your favorite TV evangelist believes.

Or what any of your church friends believe.

Or even what you yourself believe.

But it’s still, exactly and only, what God Himself believes.

You’ve been told that, in this world, God wants you to live. And to live well. And to live long. And to live large. You’ve been told that you can bring the greatest glory to God by “wearing your blessings well.” That you’ll bring God the greatest glory by rising to the top of life through the favor that He will give you with men, as He raises you to ever increasing heights of power and influence in this world.

But is that how God did it with your Master? The One that you say you would ‘follow’?

Do you not think that God favored Jesus even more highly than you? Did God not get through Jesus the greatest glory for Himself that was divinely possible? Did He not bless Jesus more in this world than He could ever bless anyone else? To Whom has God given the name that is above every other name in the world to come?

Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

That’s a big request. Do you not think that God answered that prayer and, with His very own Self, glorified Christ?

Of course He did.

And exactly how did He do that? In what manner? In what fashion did the Great God of the universe, in His infinite wisdom and power, choose to glorify Himself in Christ?

Did God bless Jesus in this world with a crown like the one that they promise you, or did He bless Him instead with a cross, like the one they insist God would never want for you?

Did He glorify Himself through Jesus with His “best life now,” like they promise you, or with His most unimaginable “worst death now,” like the one they insist God would never want for you?

In this world, did God lift Jesus to ever increasing heights of worldly power and influence on the wings of the generous favor of men? Or did He instead lift Him no higher than the height of the cross, not on the favor of men, but on their unprecedented hatreds and murderous cruelties?

And did not God give the Son, Whom He loved most dearly, the very One in Whom He was so well pleased, the greatest gift of all, by allowing Him to cruelly suffer and finally to die for a world that didn’t even care? Exactly how much power and influence do you have when you’re nailed to a cross?

By God’s very own design, was there ever a place, any place, meant to be a place of any greater weakness or less influence than that which is found on a cross? Is a cross not the ultimate place of weakness? Is that not how He blessed and glorified Jesus? Blessed Him, not with power, but instead, with weakness?

On the cross, in weakness, God Himself was slain. Do you think that on your cross – the one He says you must take up if you would follow Him – you won’t be slain? That you shouldn’t be slain? That on your cross, you should live and prosper instead? That thought is surreal.

If God made the cross to be the place of ultimate weakness for Christ, will He now make it to be the place of ultimate power for you? If the cross was ordained for the suffering and death of God Himself, how will your cross be anything other than that?

The prophets of prosperity would have you rule in power here on earth. Exactly like Jesus never did. Jesus would have you serve in weakness here on earth. Exactly like He did. They would have you live and prosper here on earth. Exactly like Jesus never did. Jesus would have you die and prosper in the world to come. Exactly like He did.

If you would follow Him, you don’t get a different cross. You don’t get a special cross. You don’t get an easy cross. A painless, free-from-suffering, comfortable-and-prosperous cross. All who would follow Him just get the same cross that He got. His cross was for dying. And so is yours.

And if it was only the cross whereby the Father favored and blessed His only begotten Son, and if it was only the cross whereby the Father glorified Himself with Himself in His only begotten Son, why would you think that He now would bless and favor you and glorify Himself in you by employing precisely and exactly the opposite means?

If the perfect, only-begotten Son of God learned obedience by the things that He suffered, will you, unlike your Master, learn your obedience by the things that comfort and delight you instead?

You’ve been called to follow. Not to lead. You don’t get to discover a new path. You get to follow Him on the same path that He walks, or you don’t get to follow Him at all. If you’re not pointed in the direction of Golgotha, you’re not following on the same path that He walked. Because in this world, that’s the only direction Jesus ever went.

The very definition of following is to go where another goes. Not to go where another does not go.

Jesus says, Follow me. Go where I go. Do as I do. I am taking up my cross to die. And if you would come after Me, take up yours, and die with me.

Be it far from thee, said Peter to Jesus. Far from thee.

The only thing that is farther from death than life itself – is the good life itself, the comfortable life itself, and the prosperous life itself. It is exactly, precisely, an entire universe away from the suffering and death of the cross.

Silver and gold have I none, said Peter. “Well that’s a problem you need to remedy,” say the prosperity preachers. “How can you have your ‘best life now’ without any silver and gold?”

Thy money perish with thee, said Peter to Simon the sorcerer. “Better for his money to perish with me than with he,” they quip.

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you, says James. “I’d rather be weeping as a rich man than weeping as a poor man,” they would all happily agree.

But in truth, it is only as Paul says it is: They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. They fall into the snare.

When God Himself has called you to die, the call to live becomes the chiefest snare, scandalon, that hell ever invented.

And why is “your best life now” the greatest snare that hell has ever created?

Jesus had said, If any man would come after me...

Come after literally means, “to walk behind in the same way.” I’ll go first, says Jesus, and you follow wherever I go.

Listen carefully: if you insist that you, as a follower of Christ, should live and prosper, then that is nothing more than the veiled insistence – the very same one that Peter made openly – that Jesus Himself should also have lived and prospered.

After all, yours is the call to follow Him. And as His follower, you are not allowed to go anywhere that He doesn’t go first. That’s the very definition of following.

Jesus said, The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master (Luke 6:40).

The goal of discipleship is to simply do what your master does. Not to do differently, but to do the same. To profess that you are a disciple of Christ while you live differently than your Master did is to betray the very idea of discipleship altogether. And the only way you can follow this Master to live and prosper in this world is if this Master Himself also lives and prospers in this world. You may only go where He goes.

Did He live and prosper? Then you may live and prosper. Did He suffer and die? Then you must suffer and die.

The cross is an instrument of death – not an instrument of life. Not an instrument of comfort or prosperity. Exactly how does one prosper on a cross? Where is the comfort, in any measure, whatsoever, to be found in the excruciating experience promised in a cross?

Do you imagine that when Jesus said, Take up your cross and follow me, that He really meant, Take up as much of the riches of this world as you possibly can, enjoy your ‘best life now,’ and we’ll just call that ‘being crucified’?

If you’re looking for that kind of experience, you’re following the wrong Master. To Jesus, that kind of talk about living and life, about avoiding suffering and death, is Peter’s kind of talk. And Peter’s kind of talk is nothing less than Satan’s kind of talk.

Any ‘Peter’ who would say to you as a follower of Christ that you should live and prosper in this world would inarguably be saying that your leader – the one that you are following – should also have Himself lived and prospered in this world. That’s the only logical extension of that argument.

Jesus’ greatest temptation is also our greatest temptation. And to tempt the followers of Christ to live and prosper is to tempt Christ Himself to live and prosper. If you would tempt Christ, you have already tempted his disciples. And if you would tempt His disciples, you have already tempted Christ. Exactly like Peter did.

Satan, through Peter, lays the baited snare for both Jesus and His disciples with the very same utterance. And that’s why Jesus turns quickly and addresses the rest of His disciples, to make sure they know that the reason they cannot live is the same reason that He cannot live.

Because we both, says Jesus, have crosses to willingly take up, and we both have lives to willingly lay down.

You cannot follow Jesus where Jesus does not go. That’s a delusion.

And if you would follow Him to comfort and prosperity and life, then He, of necessity, will have to have been there first, before you. Otherwise, you can’t really be following Him at all. To get to “your best life now,” you’d be doing something, but that something could never be called “following.”

And those who would attempt to convince you to the contrary, to tempt you to the contrary, have forgotten that the call to a cross is never a call to life. It is always and only a call to death.

They savor the things that be of men: life and all its comforts and its prosperity. And they are not even ashamed to tell you so. In fact, that is their very boast. “Wear your blessings well,” they encourage you. “Glory in the uncrucified life.” Precisely like Jesus didn’t. Their glory is in their shame.

Theirs is a crown theology. Not a cross theology. It’s a theology of life. Not a theology of death. They glory in the crown of Christ and not in the cross of Christ. And that is the very contradiction of Christ Himself.

The only invitation that Jesus ever extends in this life is the invitation to die. Choose death, He says. And the invitation to do the opposite is Hell’s greatest snare to both Jesus and every man who would follow Him.

The sheer evil genius of the “your best life now” message is that it is not against God directly. It doesn’t have to be.

The logic goes like this: God is for man, therefore God is against whatever is against man. That’s logical. And since suffering and death are obviously against man, then God is obviously against suffering and death. And that’s also logical. And since God is for man, and since life and prosperity are for man, then God is obviously for life and prosperity. And that’s absolutely logical as well. Simple logic. Complex lie.

The subtlety of the prosperity message is this: it is ‘for’ man directly, in a particular way that man cannot easily be convinced is, in and of itself, against God directly. Because man has never been easily convinced that being rich is ‘against God directly.’

The prosperity preachers have told their eager audience that Isaiah is wrong. According to them, God really does think just like them. And instead of a universe of difference existing continually between every one of God’s thoughts and their thoughts, there is really a universe of likeness. And, according to them, if you want to be rich, it’s because God, Who is thinking His very thoughts right inside you, wants you to be rich as well.

And consequently, they don’t even seem to hear the contradiction to what they’re thinking when Jesus says, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

But the disciples who listened to Jesus that day heard exactly what He said. And they were astonished out of measure!

Uncharacteristically, Jesus even repeats Himself for added emphasis. As riches increase, He warns them, so does the difficulty of entering the kingdom of God increase.

That’s precisely the opposite of what the baited trap of the prosperity message teaches.

Here’s what the disciples actually heard that day, that astonished them:

Jesus said in effect, Forget about healing the lepers. Forget about opening the eyes of the blind and forget about even raising the dead. There is no comparison of miraculous difficulty anywhere else to be found that compares with this one: the most difficult thing to do in all the world is to get a rich man into heaven.

Getting a rich man into heaven is only possible with God because ‘all’ things are possible with God. But it is not in the least bit ‘probable,’ not even with God. Don’t be deceived. When it comes to doing miracles, getting a rich man into heaven is at the very top of God’s list in its degree of improbability.

But nobody even seems to even hear what Jesus says. In their prosperous ignorance, they’re too busy celebrating their “financial breakthroughs.” But you need to be very careful of exactly where that breakthrough might take you:

The prophets of prosperity never cease to remind their followers that Jesus said, It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. But they somehow forget to tell them that His very next sentence was Sell that ye have, and give alms.

Obviously the kingdom that the Father is pleased to give you has nothing to do with riches in this world. Otherwise, you would be selling the very kingdom that He had just been so pleased to give you. Your friends never give you Christmas presents and then turn around and encourage you to sell them afterwards. Neither does God.

They also conveniently forget to provide Jesus’ definition of the treasure of the kingdom which is your Father’s good pleasure to give you, that He speaks in the same breath: a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. The treasure is in heaven. Do thieves approach the wealth here on earth? Yes. Do moths corrupt the wealth here on earth? Yes. Then the treasure of the kingdom He gives us cannot be those things.

“Your best life now” teaches that it’s actually easier, not harder, for a rich man to enter the kingdom than any other. Riches, they declare, are themselves the very evidence of his favor and pleasure with you. The more of His favor you acquire, the more riches you will acquire as its evidence. “Wear your blessings well,” they encourage you. “For they are the very adornment of God.”

To these, anything that would contradict that principle of worldly prosperity is automatically rejected as a lie. And conversely, anything that would promote worldly prosperity is automatically received as the truth. From this point of view, the true measure of a man’s godliness is strictly evidenced in his material gain. Those who say that is not the message just haven’t been listening well.

But listen as Paul describes these prophets of prosperity:

Paul had a different take on the idea of seeking to be rich. Far from fulfilling you, he promised it would utterly destroy you. It will drown you in destruction and perdition, he declares. That’s the real payoff for the baited snare of “your best life now.”

“Contentment”? That’s a curse word to the prosperity movement. Contentment is the very essence of a lack of faith in their theology: “Dream bigger. Desire more. Don’t settle for the little life. God wants to make you big in this life. You simply can’t out-dream God.”

Where godliness is equated with worldly gain, Paul declares that that mind is corrupt and destitute of the truth. The word “destitute,” apostereo, means “to be kept back by fraud.” The “gain is godliness” idea defrauds the disciple of Christ of any real gain. It is the baited bent-stick snare of “your best life now.”

From such withdraw thyself. But thou, O man of God, flee these things.

“Let me tell you what real gain is,” says Paul:

To die is gain. I never hear that message in “your best life now.” I do however, hear its oxymoronic contradiction: “To live is gain.”

Jesus says the attempt to serve two masters, God and money, will always require a convoluted justification of yourself before men.

There is an entire industry that has grown up around imagining that the teachings of Jesus are really about economic and free enterprise ideas to help His disciples achieve worldly success. Myriad scriptures are wrenched from their intended heavenly context and made to serve totally earthly ends. Men serve themselves while pretending to serve God. And the justifications always follow.

“We are simply heeding our Master’s advice on the accumulation of wealth,” they assure you. “Come with us and, for a price of course, we’ll teach you how He would have you lay up treasures here on earth.”

And if you ask them if they’re sure that they’re really doing it “just like Jesus did,” they always bristle with indignation and answer “Yes, of course we are!”

But here is what is evident to anyone with at least two functional brain cells:

Unless they appoint as treasurer of their earthly economic enterprise one who first steals all their money and then proceeds to successfully betray them unto death for even more money, they’re definitely not treating their enterprise the way Jesus treated His:

As soon as you appoint Judas to be the treasurer of your free enterprise endeavor, just like Jesus did with His, then I’ll know that you’re treating your money with the very same regard that Jesus treated His. Until then, we’ll all know you’re really just trying to make the real Master serve your real master.

There is nothing that men esteem more highly than the accumulation of wealth in this world. And whatever men highly esteem, Jesus says, God finds “abominable.” The word is bdelugma, “a rotting stench.” Employing Jesus’ words about the world to come in order to gather money for yourself and your followers in this world is a rotten stench in the nostrils of God.

What Jesus says about money is astonishing in both its clarity and simplicity. There are, according to Him, simply and only two masters available to serve. There is God on the one hand, and there is money on the other hand. And that’s it. You will either serve God or you will serve money.

If you love the one master, according to the clear and unambiguous words of Jesus Himself, you will hate the other. And if you hold to the one master, you will despise the other.

Think about what Jesus did not say.

He did not say that if you love and hold to the one master, you will tolerate, condone, accept, countenance, or live in harmonious and peaceful co-existence with the other master. Instead, Jesus said that if you love and hold to the one master, you will hate and despise the other master. The word hate is the Greek word miseo, “to detest, especially to persecute.” To detest is “to abhor, hate, loathe, shrink from, be unable to bear, to find intolerable.” The word despise is the Greek word kataphroneo, “to think against or to disesteem.” To disesteem is “to insult or to show contempt for.”

That’s what He said. Don’t be confused.

Jesus didn’t say, “You cannot love God and also love money at the same time.” That’s only what you think He said.

On the contrary, Jesus said that if you love and hold to God, you will hate and despise money. And as astonishing as it may seem, that means that if you do not hate and despise money, you do not love and hold to God.

That’s what He said. Don’t be confused.

Simply said: if you love the one master (God), you will hate the other master (money). And if you hold to the one master (money), you will despise the other master (God).

But that’s probably not even close to how your pastor tells it.

Or how your favorite TV preacher tells it.

Or how your church friends tell it.

Or even how you yourself tell it.

But that doesn’t seem to bother Jesus in the least. Because according to Him, that’s still – exactly and only – how God Himself tells it.

Yes, I know. Jesus isn’t saying what Moses said about money. Not even close. And Jesus isn’t saying what Solomon said about money. Also not even close. Jesus isn’t saying what anyone else is saying about money. Not by an entire universe.

But then again, Jesus isn’t saying anything about anything that anyone else is saying. He alone speaks for God. Because He is the Word. And there is no other.

My thoughts are not your thoughts, declares God. Not one. Not ever. Not even close. No exceptions.

Don’t listen to what men say about riches. Listen to what Jesus says about riches. Here are His thoughts, and they are utterly terrifying: