A Failed Gospel Tract

I found this image on the Jolly Blogger's blog the other day, and it spurred a few thoughts.

"Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is what Matt Chandler calls the modern "gospel" preached in many evangelical churches today.

This "gospel" differs only slightly from the so-called "prosperity gospel" hawked by the T.V. personalities - some of whom sit "on thrones and have wife who looks like she lost a paint-ball war" (description courtesy Mark Driscoll).

The big lie that many have bought into is that God just wants you to be happy in this life and spend eternity in heaven sitting on a cloud strumming a harp. You can be anything you want, and God is there - like a mystical genie in a bottle - for you to use toward whatever ends you desire. Jesus is your bff (best friend forever for those not into the txting lingo) that you visit with whenever it is convenient for you.

This view seems to me to fly in the face of the clear teaching of Scripture. Passages such as:

Romans 5:3-5

3: More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4: and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5: and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Hebrews 12:1-4

1: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2: looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3: Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
4: In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Revelation 2:8-10

8: "And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: 'The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.
9: "'I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
10: Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

These wonderful passages seem to tell of a faith not marked by easy and worldly success, but a life of joy filled suffering.