Originally published Wednesday, 27 November 2019.
As we were hinting in a previous post, in God's perfect providence, an opportunity to share our testimony of coming of the deception of the Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel movement presented itself a few months ago.
Emily reached out to Doreen in early September and let Doreen know how much her ministry had been such a blessing and how it had helped us not feel alone in the journey of healing from deception. Doreen was heavily involved in Christian Science/New Thought New Age (all very similar ideologies as Word of Faith) and was a practicing medium. But Jesus saved her and pulled her out of the deception of those movements in 2017! Praise God! Emily shared a little with Doreen of how Paul grew up in the Word of Faith/prosperity gospel movement for the first 25+ years of his life and how at one point, we both began working for Joyce Meyer. Coming out of Word of Faith theology in 2015 and eventually leaving Joyce Meyer Ministries after watching American Gospel in February 2019 has been one of the most challenging, painful, yet beautiful experiences in our 10 years of marriage. Doreen asked us to share our testimony on her YouTube channel. We prayed and set a date for the interview.
We personally know how damaging this theology can be because its twisting of scripture can be so subtle. THAT is what makes it dangerous. You could unknowingly think you are believing the gospel, but could very much be believing a false gospel. Therefore following a false Jesus. A Jesus who promises riches and victory and healing in this life, but never calls you to repentance and faith in God (not faith in faith) alone.
We hope you would take the time to watch the whole video. If you have any questions or comments, we would be more than happy to engage in civil dialogue. We do not want anyone to stay in deception, especially in this dangerous movement. This is all out of a heart of love, and we pray you would see that. Ultimately, we pray Joyce, along with all the other Word of Faith teachers, would repent and trust in the true gospel.
We also want to thank Chris Roseborough of Pirate Christian Media Justin Peters Ministries, Costi W. Hinn, Desiring God, Grace to You, and Ligonier Ministries (among many others) for helping us on this journey of building a strong foundation of truth in the Word of God and having the boldness to call out error. We are grateful beyond words for all that these ministries and men of God have done in our lives. - Paul & Emily Massey**
**After I wrote this blog post, I went to check our Facebook Page and noticed that my "pinned" post wasn't there anymore. As I scrolled down to the date in which it was originally posted, I realized it was gone. Thankfully, a friend had shared our post and copied and pasted the caption. The caption was still there, but the link was missing..."This Content Isn't Available Right Now," it said. Facebook removed our post, y'all! It can only be assumed that enough people reported our post and it was taken down by the Facebook police. Don't you just love censorship...especially at the hand of "Christians" because why would the world care about Joyce Meyer? Obviously, what we said matters. It's because truth matters. And we will continue to defend it.
Soli Deo Gloria
Emily
You can read more and contact us at www.wewouldratherhavejesus.com.