Many who profess Christ have a false view of blessings and think that to be blessed means to enjoy and indulge in wealth, treasure, leisure, and pleasure. This doctrine of demons has caused immense pain and serious spiritual bondage in many people. It has even caused some to lose faith by being erroneously taught that God shows His love by granting people such things. It implies that if they do not receive such things, or the desires of their heart pertaining to wealth, treasure, leisure, or pleasure are not fulfilled – be it for a dream job, ideal career, a spouse, children, or house, or whatever it may be – that God does not love them or that He loves them less, or otherwise has shown them less favour compared to others who have received what they want.
To add insult to injury, people are even taught in some circles that they must rejoice for others who receive the things they want while they themselves do not have. They are consequently berated as ‘bitter’ or ‘envious’ for not doing so, and patronisingly moralised about rejoicing for the purported ‘blessings’ others receive.
Such demonic teachings and mockingly insulting moralising, however, are based on a completely false view of blessings, which are completely antithetical to what scriptures actually teach. In particular, Old Testament scriptural verses are often twisted to justify this false teaching on blessings, especially by reference to the abundant wealth of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
While God did grant much abundance and prosperity to the Patriarchs, the blessings conferred upon them did not lie in such things, be it their abundant flocks of sheep and goats, or their large families with plentiful children and grandchildren. Rather, their blessings lay in being righteous and holy before God. Their blessings are the eternal, not the temporal. Their blessings are the intangible, not the tangible. Their blessings are stored in Heaven, and Heaven alone.
The Fleshly, Carnal Appeal of the So-Called Prosperity ‘Gospel’
The prosperity ‘gospel’ has poisoned the minds of so many professing Christians, who are under all manner of strange delusions and are held captive to the spirit to false doctrine – all without realising it. It has made a fool out of so many a professing Christian, especially certain denominations, only to be rightly criticised by both unbelievers and the Church.
The scriptures have already prophesised false prophets who teach false doctrine to lead the masses astray: ‘For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry’ (2 Timothy: 3-5).
That time has come. Such unsound teachings are those about what it means to be ‘blessed’ with all kinds of material wealth, treasure, leisure, and pleasure, and how one should pursue these. The false teachers who spread such teachings are effectively life coaches who teach people how to use God to get what they want for themselves, under the deceptive veneer of false spirituality. Jude, in particular, describes such teachers:
For certain people have crept in[to the Church] unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
(Jude 1:4)
One of main characteristics of false teachers is their perversion of grace to justify sensuality. Critically, such sensuality does not only refer to sexual immorality, but to all kinds of sins of the flesh. To reduce sensuality to include only sexual immorality to the exclusion of all other sins of the flesh, is to have a low view of holiness and righteousness. Yet, that is precisely what many religious people do. For all their self-declared, presumptuous proclamations of holiness and righteousness, they are full of all kinds of lusts. Sensuality also includes selfish ambition, vainglory, pleasure-seeking, and wealth-seeking, which religious people see as ‘respectable sins’, but which are a stench in the nostrils of God.
These false teachers appeal to people because of their ungodly, sensual teachings. Those who are deceived by these teachers are those who ‘rel[y] on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones’ (Jude 1:8). Adherents to such doctrines often portray themselves to be extremely spiritual, and attack anyone who criticises them as ‘religious’, used in the pejorative sense, ‘Pharisaical’ for being ‘too righteous’ or ‘pursuing an impossible standard of holiness’. This is why the scriptures refer to them as those who ‘blaspheme the glorious ones’.
This tragically deluded ilk also often speak about their own ‘prophecies’ and ‘dreams’, and even speak about praying to make their ‘prophecies’ or ‘dreams’ a reality, much to the rightful mockery of all others, both true and faithful followers of Christ, as well as unbelievers. They are not optimistic, nor possess a rightful positive thinking, but are deceived without realising it. These people are indeed ‘grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favouritism to gain advantage’ (Jude 1:16).
They love to pray for what they want for themselves, boasting about everything they have, and constantly grumbling whenever they do not have what they desire and always discontented even when they do. They live to satisfy their own sinful desires, led by their own sinful desires, driven by vainglory, selfish ambition, pleasure-seeking, and wealth-seeking. All their prayers before God serve to satisfy their own lusts, which is totally contrary to prayer that pleases God (James 4:2-3).
The Beatitudes
Jesus expounded clearly on what it means to be truly blessed in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:2-12). It is absolutely important that Jesus did so; otherwise, the fleshly, carnal mind would presume that blessings lie in the things the flesh desires, being wealth, treasure, leisure, and pleasure. His teachings about what is means to be truly blessed was radical, challenging traditional Jewish views about what it meant to be favoured by God, and what a blessing is at all. He had to declare what true blessings are, lest anyone be deceived or remain deceived as to what it truly means to be blessed. Thus, Jesus declared:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(Matthew 5:3-12)
To be blessed does not mean to have the earthly temporal things that most desire, be it money, wealth, marriage, family, and leisure. Instead, to be blessed means to live a life of virtue that pleases God. The blessing itself lies in practising and living a life of virtue, and not in any material thing. Nor does the blessing lie in the spiritual, eternal reward that one is promised to receive. While receiving the Kingdom of God and its eternal rewards is the consequence of being holy, it is a subtle, devilish error to claim that one is blessed because of the gain of reward. That would imply that one is to practise and live a life of virtue to gain what one wants from God. This is patently wrong as we are to pursue and embody virtue because we genuinely love God, not because of what we want to gain from Him. We should not seek to gain anything from Him. We should not even think about what we might gain from obedience to God, but instead, we should simply obey God. Pursuing such virtue for the sake of one’s own gain, whether earthly and material gain, or even spiritual and eternal gain, is the wrong motive.
True virtue is necessarily pursued out of a heart that is rightly ordered and properly inclined towards God, who is Himself virtue. For God is charity, the cardinal virtue, and therefore God is in Himself virtue. To pursue true virtue is to pursue God. Those who do not live to please God are not virtuous. Although a person’s pursuit of virtue may not be perfect, and even based on erroneous doctrines or heresy, it does not negate the goodness of virtue he seeks, and that such an act is the pursuit of God.
To Be Blessed is to Pursue God Himself for Being God
To accept that one is to pursue true virtue, that is God Himself for the sole reason of pursuing Him, requires not only faith that can only be granted from God, but humility. Humility is the beginning of all true virtue. Many religious people lack such humility and are pursuing a life of virtue for the sake of the spiritual, eternal rewards, rather than because out of a genuine love for Jesus. They are like the rich young ruler who came running up to Jesus asking how he may inherit eternal life as recorded in the Gospels (Matthew 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-27; Luke 18:18-23).
According to the fleshly, carnal thinking of religious people, the rich young ruler was extremely blessed. He was not only a godly man, but one who received many earthly rewards in this life for his devotion to God, and therefore much to be admired. This thinking, however, is absolutely erroneous, and so prevalent among religious circles, making it all the more perturbingly pernicious. It has negatively affected so many and caused them much confusion about what it means to pursue God.
Unlike most professing Christians today, Jesus felt sorrowful for the rich young ruler because he was the opposite of blessed, and looked at him pitiably because of his wealth and his prideful attitude that his wealth was sign of blessing from God for his adherence to the law and religiosity: ‘And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”’. (Mark 10:21) It was not wealth itself that was the problem, but his attachment to it, as well as his error that his earthly wealth was a sign of being blessed by God for his adherence to the law. What made the rich young ruler so ‘disheartened’ and ‘sorrowful’ by Jesus’ words was that he has ‘great possessions’ that he was attached to (Mark 10:22).
Jesus explained the truth about possessing riches to his disciples who were also shocked by his words to the rich young ruler:
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”
(Mark 10:23-27)
What makes this thinking so tragic is that it demonstrates not only spiritual blindness, but one born out of spiritual pride that is impossible for a person to see unless God shows him otherwise. It is a spiritual blindness that many religious people are under but cannot see. It leads them to accuse those who condemn their wealth acquisition or are otherwise sceptical of wealth, as being ‘too righteous for one’s own good’, ‘self-righteous’, or ‘envious’.
Religious people interpret the teaching that the problem lies not with wealth, but with attachment, to mean that since owning wealth and possessions is not in itself a sin, they may therefore pursue as much as wealth and possessions as possible. That, however, is exactly where their error lies which leads to their perverse, wicked theology on wealth. Their legalism on this point is exceedingly wicked, as it is born out of self-love, which they attempt to justify on the basis of owning wealth and possessions not being a vice, using it as an excuse.
It is this attachment to possessions that hinders one from pursuing God out of a pure, whole-hearted love for God. While owning possessions is not in and of itself a sin, it causes people to become proud and arrogant, and to have a false sense of security in such things, rather than in Jesus, making it virtually impossible to enter Heaven. This was why Jesus said it is impossible for a person with wealth to enter Heaven, that it easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter Heaven (Mark 10:23-25). Only by an immaculate miracle through divine grace can a poor person enter Heaven; even more grace and a greater miracle is required for a rich person to enter Heaven, because riches hinder a person from desiring God and pursuing God.
A ‘rich person’, as Jesus referred to, is anyone who has any possessions or wealth at all to live comfortably on, and not merely those who the world regards as the ‘super rich’. This revelation is indeed a shocking one, especially to many Christians around the world today who would be considered rich in accordance with this definition. While the Salvation of any soul at all requires grace, the Salvation of the soul of a rich person requires extraordinary grace since he has the additional barrier of wealth that hinders a person from entering Heaven.
Owning wealth and possessions itself causes the soul to become filled with the sin of pride, the cardinal sin, because it satisfies the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The temptation to not fall into pride is far too great because the sin of pride is so innate to human nature itself. It is the default sin of humankind that all constantly fall into or struggle with, unless by God’s grace, God allows a person to endure severe suffering to both humble him as well as to display His grace. It is by God’s grace that a person even knows that he should be humble, and not proud.
The blessed are blessed because they will receive the kingdom of heaven and partake in it as the Beatitudes makes explicitly clear, not because they possess earthly treasure, pleasure, wealth, health, comfort, and security which is nothing but emptiness, for these are all passing away. Such things pose a hindrance to entering Heaven, which is why one must endure many trials, tribulations, and temptations to enter Heaven, without which one cannot enter (James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 4:12).
To be Blessed means to Suffer in this Life and the World
Contrary to what most contemporary Christians have been taught, to be blessed does not mean to live a life without any adversities, hardships, or suffering. In fact, the early Church taught the precise opposite, that to be blessed means that one must suffer in this life, in this world. Not enduring suffering is a sign that a person is not under the grace of God, but instead, that God has allowed him to indulge in the pleasures of the world and satisfy his worldly desires, until the Day of Judgment arrives, for which there is no sacrifice of Salvation is available for him, not even the glimmer of hope.
By contrast, a person who is a true convert will endure suffering for the sake of their sanctification. If such a person still attempts to pursue the pleasures and treasures of this world, God will intervene to stop his path to damnation, to ‘deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord’ (1 Corinthians 5:5) as Saint Paul instructed of Church of Corinth to treat a member of the church who was engaging in gross immorality that offended even the pagans.
The offender was true convert, who despite being in the Faith, fell into such gross immorality unthinkable even among the pagans and required severe sanctification. Owing to this need for serious sanctification, and that he is a true convert whose heart is orientated towards wanting to please God, through which the destruction of his flesh and its desires was necessary for him unto Salvation.
While the offender in 1 Corinthian 5 was an extreme case, and most converts will never fall into such extreme sins, we are by no means more righteous in our own strength than he was. If it were not for God’s grace that grants us the strength to even desire righteousness and be holy at all, any one of us, no matter how holy, is susceptible to falling into sin. This is because the flesh, not only does not, but cannot seek to please God or desire holiness. For this is the essential nature of humankind:
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
(Romans 8:5-8)
Even the Apostles of Christ were not immune from succumbing to the flesh. Before His Passion, Christ instructed his Apostles: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Why did Christ warn his Apostles? It is because it is the flesh that hinders a person from doing good. A person may wholeheartedly have the will to do good but be unable to do so because of the flesh that flares up in being incited to follow its own ways, hence why Saint Paul said:
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
(Romans 7:15-20)
This is why Christ instructed His followers: “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). The way to Heaven is narrow because it is the path of holiness which requires moral perfection, for which there is to be no compromise with sin or even the slightest taint of imperfection. Jesus will only accept an unblemished Bride, free from all impurity and imperfection (Isaiah 62:5; John 14:1-3; Ephesians 5:25–32; Revelation 21:2). Many desire to enter Heaven and go through the motions of religious life, taking the sacraments, and living an outwardly moral life, but are unspiritual and do not wholeheartedly love God.
While the world and the devil along with all the forces of Hell, work aggressively to hinder souls from entering Heaven, it is the flesh that the scriptures warn the most strongly against. It is the flesh that is the most hostile, aggressive, and militant stronghold of all the forces that hinder a soul from entering Heaven, hindering a person from repenting as to even receive Salvation at all, or if a true convert, from advancement in the spiritual life.
A person may reject the ways of the world completely as many religious people do, but still be unholy before God. A person may be alert to the deception of the devil and reject his temptations into pursuing all kinds of evil, worldly agendas, but still be unholy before God. He may live an outwardly righteous, moral life but still love the sins of his flesh, which are the sins people find to be respectable because of the blinding nature of the flesh which suppresses the truth by its own unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Such a person may follow all the precepts of the Decalogue to perfection, by not murdering, not committing adultery, never misusing the Name of God, nor lying, or stealing, but whose heart is still utterly lacking in charity. Such a person is unholy before God because holiness requires both piety before God and charity towards neighbours. How can that be? His flesh is that which works all manner of wickedness of heart that is unseen before others, and only seen by God.
Only Communion with God in the Kingdom of Heaven is the True Blessing
Humankind was created to live in perfect union in love with God, dependent fully on God, and fully submitted to Him who is the Provider of all things, from wisdom, instruction, understanding, knowledge, physical needs, and all good desires. There is absolutely no lack when one lives a life fully devoted to God, completely trusting and depending on Him alone. That is the beauty of the spiritual life, though lived in this world, rejects and disavows its ways, free from the shackles of the world and its ways, which brings only pain, misery, and suffering.
A life that does not depend on or follow the ways of the world, but depends on God alone and walks in His ways, is true liberation. It is the life that is truly blessed, full of abundance, and free from all distress. Though a person may be living in the midst of adversity, he experiences only the joy, peace, and love of God that comes from the Heavens above, just as one was created to not only experience, but to live out in its fullness.
Make the Lord your Shepherd and you shall never lack in anything, in any way, or at any time, both in this life on earth, and in the life to come.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
(Psalm 23)
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