Only in the depraved mind of a false teacher's wife can one reason that buying a $200,000 car is living for God while beating the sheep you pretend to serve. As for giving away cars -- when? To whom? Who paid and were they worth as much as your new car? I might add that being nice on one hand does not mean you get to be unseemly with the other. You also should not be bragging about how generous you are. That is like swearing how humble you are. And what exactly do basketball player have to do with this conversation? Is Lebron James a pastor? I was not aware that James Harden had an active call of God on his life. Stop making ridiculous comparisons to excuse your guilt.
As for the staged and reported event last month where Gray allowed people in need to take from the offering baskets -- so what? Can you even see the rank hypocrisy? Just 20 days ago, John Gray excoriated what he called "pulpit pimps" who "seek to only make money off their congregations." Twenty days ago and now you think nothing of sending out a video giving your wife a $200,000 car that you were able to get only because of the money you have made as a pastor! This was the exact quote that day from the pulpit by Gray:
"For too long people have stood in the pulpit and told you to give, give, give. Very rarely have I seen churches that stop to say, leave the baskets out. Let the people get what they need. We've got too many pulpit pimps [who] want to get fat off of people, [who] don't want to meet the needs of the poor people. Jesus said that's who you're supposed to be taking care of. We got widows. We got orphans. We got single moms in here. We might not be able to do everything but we can do something. I wish we could do more, but this is the best we can do right now. Just know as the Lord keeps blessing us, we're going to do it more and more. We're going to buy cars for women who are catching the bus. We're going to buy houses for people who've been renting. And we're going to have more than what we need." -- John Gray
I guess he kept his promise about buying cars for women. While there certainly was some nobility for the gesture made, it cost Gray nothing. The money was taken from the offering. Nothing affected his salary. So the church building fund gets set back a week. I am not suggesting that he had to give any of his own money beloved but do not use the giving away of some of your congregation's money as an excuse for why it is ok to buy your wife an absurdly extravagant automobile. Gray declared that day that everyone in his church was entering into a season of "all you can eat" but I wonder how many other folks in his church were able to bestow such a lavish gift on their spouse.
Let's be clear. In the world, one is free to do with their money what they want. We are not supposed to be of this world however, especially in leadership. Gray mocked the criticism by saying if he had purchased her a mid-sized, mid-priced sedan no one would have cared. Yes John, that is the point exactly. Just 20 days ago you railed against what you are -- a pulpit pimp. Don't get me wrong because that status starts with your false doctrine. It starts by daring to tell everyone in your church that they all are entering a season of all you can eat when God never said that to you. By instilling in them every week the same tepid pablum Joel Osteen taught you lo those many years. That you are just so special. Your status as a pulpit pimp is from preaching a false gospel of prosperity and refusing to deal with the sins of people and their need to repent. It is about making church and the bible to be about them when it is supposed to be all about Him. The fact that you cannot tell why it was wrong to send out a video of giving your wife a car worth five years' salary to most of your employed congregants is not the problem John -- it is the symptom.
Moving on, this week there was a little story reported out of the "Jesus 18" conference in Orlando. This heresy fest included many of the top rank heretics in the world. Benny Hinn, Todd White, Heidi "Shaba" Baker, Randy Clark, and Lou Engle just to name a few. It was reported that Bethel worship leader Steffany Gretzinger told a panel of Christian leaders she had been having a visceral emotional reaction to the entire conference but didn't know why. Perhaps God was trying to break through about her role in helping one of the greatest cesspools of false teaching on the planet? One could only hope but Benny Hinn interjected with what he called a "prophetic word." Mind you this is the same Hinn who famously prophesied in 1990 that Fidel Castro would die that decade and despite giving himself an absurd ten year window he still missed the mark by a mere sixteen years. The word was that "Very few of us are chosen to comfort the Master. You're one of them."
Well, aren't you special.
No, you are not. Beloved, God does not need us to comfort Him. This is again the narcissistic; I am so special Christianity, on full display. Even if the creator of the heavens and universe wanted comfort, why in the world would He seek it from Steffany Gretzinger? Why would he seek it from the worship leader of a church that leads so many people away from Him? Quite obviously, He wouldn't. I can see the defenders already lining up. I saw them already on the John Gray story. One person swearing how much Gray "loves the Lord." I am sure those standing up for Gretzinger would say the same thing. They are of course wrong. They love the god they have created. The god that thinks its ok to tell poor people that God wants them rich and to step up for "all you can eat" when they do not know how to arrange dinner for their family that night. A false god who looks the other way when someone shows such utter contempt and disdain for the sheep by making absurd equivalencies between their new Lamborghini and Joe Smith taking fifty bucks from the offering to pay his electric bill.
