Faith for Sale: How Prosperity Preaching Warps Our View of God

Somewhere along the way, we stopped seeking God and started seeking results. Prayers became purchase orders. Worship became a performance. And faith? Well, faith got commercialized.

The prosperity gospel has slipped into the modern church like perfume in holy water—subtle, sweet, and intoxicating. It whispers that if you believe just right, if you give just enough, if you say the magic phrases, God will grant you health, wealth, and happiness.

But when faith becomes a formula, God stops being a Father and becomes a vending machine. And relationship? It’s replaced by transactions.

When Blessings Become Bargains

People are taught to measure their standing with God by their success. If you’re healthy, He’s pleased. If you’re broke or broken, you must be doing something wrong. But that’s not how love works—and it’s not how God works either.

Because the truth is: some of the kindest, most faithful people still get sick. Some of the most prayerful parents lose children. Some of the most generous givers die poor.

And it isn’t because they failed God. It’s because we live in a physical world where bodies break, cells mutate, accidents happen, and time runs out. Even Jesus wept at a tomb. Even Jesus died young.

Faith doesn’t exempt us from the laws of nature. It invites us to find peace within them.

The Bigger Picture We Rarely See

We are part of a tapestry so vast, we can’t even see the full image—only the tangled threads in our corner of the loom. Our lives are meaningful, yes, but they are not the center of the universe. We are precious, but we are not immune to pain.

To think God’s only concern is our comfort is to shrink Him down to the size of our own desires. He is not a cosmic concierge.

The prosperity gospel asks, “What can God do for me?”
Real faith asks, “Who can I become in relationship with Him, regardless of what happens?”

God Is Not a Genie—He Is a Companion

The deepest peace doesn’t come from having all our prayers answered. It comes from knowing we are not alone, even when they aren’t.

It comes from the still, quiet presence of God—not shouting promises of mansions and miracles, but whispering in the dark, “I am with you. I will not leave you.”

This is the relationship we were made for: not bargaining with a divine banker, but walking with a Friend. Not proving our worth, but being loved despite our flaws. Not skipping the valley, but finding a hand to hold while we’re in it.

Why the Good Die Young

It’s one of the hardest truths we face: good people die young. The world loses its lights too early sometimes. A child. A poet. A servant-hearted soul who should’ve lived longer.

But it isn’t punishment. It’s not a missed blessing. It’s not a failed faith.

It’s life on a planet spinning in a broken system—where biology and physics are real, and God doesn’t cancel the laws He wrote just because we’re scared. Even the most radiant flowers have seasons.

The presence of death does not mean the absence of God. Sometimes, it’s the place where we meet Him most clearly—holding us in our sorrow, giving us peace that makes no logical sense, reminding us that eternity is real even when tomorrow isn’t promised.

Reclaiming the Heart of the Gospel

Let’s say it plainly: Jesus did not promise a problem-free life. He promised His presence in the midst of it.

He offered us something better than riches: Himself. The real treasure is not health or wealth or comfort—it’s connection. Communion. The kind of intimacy where we don’t just believe in God but walk with Him.

And in that relationship, we begin to understand something holy:
God isn’t good because He gives us what we want.
God is good because He gives us Himself—even when everything else is falling apart.

Final Thoughts: Come Back to the Quiet

If your faith has been bruised by unmet expectations…
If you’ve been told your pain is proof you’re doing it wrong…
If you’ve buried someone good and wondered why…

Come back to the quiet. Come back to the table. Come back to the God who doesn’t promise you a yacht, but a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light—not because it’s small, but because He helps carry it.

Let go of the hustle theology. Let go of the shame. Let go of the shiny version of God that never existed in the first place.

Come home to the real God—the one who sits beside you, not above you. The one who cries when you cry. The one who doesn’t always fix things, but never leaves you to face them alone.

He is not for sale. He is freely given.

And He is enough.