LIFE SURGE: My wife on her FB feed keeps getting these advertisements for some sort of inspirational event coming to our area next month sometime. It’s called LIFE SURGE. Here is how they describe themselves. “WHAT IS LIFE SURGE? Life Surge is a one-day live event designed to inspire, train, and equip believers to advance God’s Kingdom. We believe in faithful stewardship, using wealth as a tool to expand God’s Kingdom, share the gospel, and leave an eternal legacy. Life Surge empowers Christians to integrate their faith into their work and wealth, maximizing their impact for Christ. Join thousands of believers who are ready to honor God with their resources and live with eternal purpose. Through powerful worship, world-class speakers, and biblical financial insights, you’ll walk away, with clarity on your divine calling, be grounded in biblical wisdom for your finances, equipped with practical tools to build a legacy, be reignited with purpose to impact your family, community, and the Kingdom. This is a Movement. Not a Concept. This is a Transformation. Not a trend. This is a Community. Not a CROWD.” That’s quite the statement!
As I’m trying to read their mission statement, there’s this annoying countdown timer at the bottom of the page telling you that you have only a few hours to buy tickets at a special reduced price. Here is that breakdown: “Right now if you click on the link you can purchase a $197 ticket for the special price of $49, but only while this deal lasts. Additionally, there is a $497 option, but that has already been sold out. That included: The Best Seats. Priority Entry. Life Surge Digital Program. Life Surge Keepsake Wristband. Life Surge Tour Lanyard. Fresh Boxed Lunch Included ($15 Value) BONUSES. Photo with Tim Tebow. Photo with Calvin Johnson. Photo with Willie Robertson. So, are You Ready to Surge Your Life God’s Way?”
This completely boggles the mind! How does any of this have even the faintest resemblance to Christ, the Scriptures, or the Gospel itself? It’s nothing more than a religious sideshow, a shameless charade clothed in “christian” language, making a mockery of anything remotely related to God or the scriptures; and the saddest part is how desperate and undiscerning people must be to engage with such deception, mistaking it for some expression of christianity when it is nothing but a lie. There is not the faintest trace of true christianity in any of this, unless one mistakes christianity for little more than niceness, feigned humility, and outward kindness. Meanwhile the gospel is silenced, the truth is dragged through the mud, and multitudes are kept busy with religion and all its pageantry.
It’s so obvious that they use what the world calls Christianity as a tool to propel themselves forward and to promote their own agenda. They dress it up in spiritual language and market it with slick slogans, but at the heart it is nothing but self-exaltation. They say it’s about “advancing God’s Kingdom,” but in reality it places man at the very center. Notice how every promise revolves around you, your wealth, your calling, your purpose, your legacy. Christ is mentioned, but only as a convenient accessory to serve man.
One of the most troubling aspects of this Life Surge message is their constant obsession with building a legacy. A legacy for who? For your name? For your fleeting, pathetic life which God gave you for one reason only, that Christ might be glorified, whether in your salvation or in your destruction. “The LORD hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” Proverbs 16:4. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the exact opposite of this man-centered sham. It is not about you! Scripture never once calls anyone to build a legacy! Philippians 3:7-8. On the contrary, it calls believers to lose their lives for Christ’s sake, Luke 9:24, to set their “affection on things above, not on things on the earth,” Colossians 3:2, it declares that “all flesh is grass,” Isaiah 40:6, that the “world passeth away,” I John 2:17, and that “here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” Hebrews 13:14. The believer’s hope is not in being remembered for a legacy, but in being found in Christ and His righteousness alone. Philippians 3:9.
Listen to these words of David, spoken when he was hidden away in a cave, cut off from all the comforts of life, betrayed by his own men, and reduced to a man with nothing left but to cast himself wholly upon the Lord, “I cried unto thee, O LORD; I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” Psalm 142:5. What a confession. The weight of his words are staggering, he did not cry, “give me back my kingdom,” or, “let my name endure,” but rather, “thou art my portion in the land of the living.” What else is there to seek? What else endures? As Peter would later declare, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” John 6:68. Now listen to David again, many years later, no longer in the cave but reigning as king, “the LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup, thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Psalm 16:5-6. From the darkness of a cave to the splendor of the crown, David’s confession was the same, the LORD was his portion. “Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” Psalm 73:25.
What a contrast to the spirit of the age, which treasures wealth, reputation, and legacy as the measure of all things, and then sprinkles it with a veneer of religion, not enough to interfere with anyone’s life to any great extent, but perhaps just enough to soothe the conscience, christianize one’s ambitions, and call a worldly life “Christian.” “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.” Isaiah 30:10. It is religion made safe, designed to give the illusion of heaven while clinging fast to the world. “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24. David’s confession silences all such pride. It shows us that true blessedness is not found in what we gather, leave behind, or secure for our name, but in having the Lord as our portion. This makes the spectacle before us all the more nauseating, as men exploit the name of Christ not to proclaim Him, but to enrich themselves.
After all, I hope we for a minute don’t think this has anything to do with money? My wife looked up how much Tim Tebow makes for a single speaking engagement, and the figure is somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000, and up to a million dollars for “special events.” That’s hilarious, these guys figured out how to make some serious money! One night on stage and he makes more than many of us do in a year. I work 45 hours a week at a meat processing plant and have never once made $75,000 in a year, yet these “christian celebrities” can pocket that in an evening under the guise of ministry. Dang, that’s a lot! Well let’s just hope these guys are tithing off of all this, as giving God the leftovers, sounds like a perfect business model for overall success in life. Do we not see the truth of Christ’s words here? “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” Luke 16:8. The people of this age know how to scheme, how to market, how to build platforms, how to draw crowds, how to amass fortunes, &c., and nowhere is this more evident than in religious spectacles of this nature, built on marketing and strategy rather than Christ. They discovered a clever way to package religion, turn “christ” into a brand, turn “worship” into an event, and the name of “jesus” into a money-making empire. Essentially, it’s the shallow world of christian celebrities and entertainers, where the name of “christ” is commercialized, religion is packaged, sold and consumed like cheap entertainment, and the world loves it, as it loves its own. John 15:19. That is why these spectacles are applauded, celebrated, and embraced, because they are born of the same spirit as the world itself. The world recognizes its own voice in the message, its own image in the methods, its own cravings in the promises, and so it loves what it sees. “They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.” I John 4:5.
At times one almost feels driven to disown any connection with what the world calls “christianity.” Not from a spirit of pride or self-righteousness, as though we ourselves were anything, but from a sense of profound astonishment that we’ve been given any measure of ‘gospel’ light to detest this sort of religious fraud that substitutes man for Christ. And if our Lord was zealous to cleanse His temple then, how much more should His people now be zealous to protest against these things, with hearts stirred that the worship of Christ should not be trampled under the feet of religious merchants. The child of God cannot stomach a religion that flatters the flesh, exalts man, and dares to profane the holy name of Jesus. As it is written, “the name of GOD is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.” Romans 2:24. MPJ