The Bible emphasizes the fact that we will enter God's Kingdom through many tribulations, as we read in Acts 14:22, "...strengthening the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, "We must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations."
We must exercise extreme caution when listening to teachers who only talk about living prosperously and claiming that life will always be easy.
This has also led Christians all over the world to believe that if they don't have any comfort or material blessings in their lives, God isn't as concerned with them as He is with the wealthy, or they are under some sort of vicious curse. Wrong! Material blessings do not imply spiritual blessings.
One of the Church's blunders in Laodicea (Rev 3.14) was equating material blessings such as wealth, money, and possessions with spiritual blessing. They took all of this as proof of God's favour and acceptance. Jesus corrected that viewpoint at the time, but the vast majority of Christians today are repeating the same error.
This dangerous theology is being taught right from Sunday school. Some places the Sunday school lessons teach just one-sided truth of how God is God of blessing and love and how he wants to use us. There is no touch base on how to prepare for worst struggles. This is why today's youth find it hard to deal with storms of life because of their juvenile faith produced by this wrong theology from the beginning. Imagine if you were to live in some warzone or an area that constantly faced persecution, what theology for your kids would you want them to learn?
Let me tell you, take a look at the lives of any disciples of Jesus. Not a single one was without any tribulation. They abandoned all for Jesus. They had no desire for the things of this world. What prosperity teachers are teaching the church is quite the opposite! They don't teach you surrender. They don't reveal the reality of struggles. They don't empower you to go on mission or preach the gospel. All what they teach you is to give with the intention to get and not for the glory of God.
My intention of writing this post was to say that we need to let the word of God alone to alter our reality. Many are losing their faith due to storms they did not expect would come. Many have built their faith in sinking sand hearing false teachers. A faith that leaves us unprepared for suffering is a false faith.
Here's a great verse that says, real victory over the devil is when you love the Lord above yourself.
"They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." Rev 12.11
About the author: Danston John is an evangelist with a strong passion of taking the gospel to the world by all possible means. His ministry is committed to reach the unreached and prepare the church for the harvest of souls.